L'Italia non è un paese per infermieri

Nurses, a rare commodity. How come?

The number of nurses in Italy is 6 nurses per 1000 inhabitants, 25% less than the European average.

Numbers that put the country's health at risk, a political and managerial class that has never wanted to understand the importance, value, and strategic role of this profession.

Over decades, they have made this profession unattractive both economically and through staff cuts, arrogant and presumptuous impositions by many healthcare companies.

Today, healthcare workers, especially nurses, are always at risk of being reported for an oversight or human error, dictated by fatigue from skipped rest and blocked holidays. Risk of losing their job or even worse ending up in jail.
In addition to the risk of contracting a deadly disease or bringing it home, perhaps along with some killer bacteria. 

Enormous responsibilities and risks, for the pay of an unskilled worker, a supermarket employee (no offense to anyone).

Nursing is the profession with the most accidents in the world, also leading in suicide risk.

In Italy, many students drop out in the first year and many colleagues resign within two years.

Why should a young person choose to be a nurse and not a factory worker or an employee at a shopping center, given that the pay is the same? Why should they risk their life, jail, endure huge workloads, skipped rest, blocked holidays, work long nights, endure the arrogance of healthcare companies, for a salary between 1400 and 1500 euros a month?

We haven't mentioned the emotional impact this profession has on one's psyche, due to what we face every day: death, suffering, pain, inevitable. True, this profession also gives a lot of personal satisfaction, when a patient thanks us from the heart, shakes our hand in a way that only we can understand, but as beautiful as it is, it's not enough, we are not missionaries.

36% of Italian nurses would leave the country immediately.

But the thing that hurts the most is that politicians and healthcare managers do not understand the importance of nurses.

The president of Farmindustria revealed that by 2050 there will be 2.4 million deaths in OECD countries. In Italy, the forecast is 450,000 deaths, with devastating economic repercussions. By increasing the number of nurses these numbers would collapse, as well as enormous economic savings.

Here are some studies:

According to a study by the University of Pennsylvania (USA), it emerges that by increasing one patient per nurse (with an average of 5.7 patients) the incidence of urinary catheter infection increases by one case per thousand patients. We don't want to imagine when patients become 10 or 12 per nurse, even more in some situations.

According to a study conducted in Great Britain, which confirms other studies, when nurse management goes from 10 to 6 patients, mortality is reduced by 20%.

We at Nursing Up have always said and reiterated this at the important tables, but it seems the great luminaries are not interested.

It has been observed that replacing nurses with other figures does not reduce mortality.

According to a study in California, conducted on medical and surgical wards, the optimal nurse/patient ratio would be 1 to 6, even though the state of California legally requires a ratio of 1 to 5, which saves money, infections, and deaths. A real bargain, for those who can understand it.

Lancet Study 2014: Every time you increase 1 patient per nurse, the burnout index increases by 23%, patient mortality increases by 7%, and the likelihood that the nurse does not realize the complications the patient is facing increases by 7%.

In world statistics, ISTAT, it emerges that nursing staff, compared to the general population, have a 90% higher chance of having problems at work and a 20-30% higher chance of suffering from depression.

The nurse is the healthcare worker most affected by accidents, suicides (double compared to the general population. 70% more than doctors). No one asks why it is the nurse?

It seems of no interest to national politics, to Governors, or even to company managers.

One nurse for every 6 patients (and not 10, 12, 36) reduces death, hospital infections, and healthcare spending.

The Italian population must know that thenurse's salary in Italy is well below the OECD average and is much lower even than the cost of living. There are single-income families headed by nurses who don't make it to the 20th of the month and are forced into debt.

We at the Page have a clear idea to solve this situation, in fact the solution, we need nurses in RSUs and in politics. We see no other solution to stop being the last wheel of the wagon. 
LapaginadiNursingUp