"SOS Sanità: Medici e Infermieri uniti per salvare il SSN dalla crisi"

The Demands of Doctors and Nurses to Save the National Health Service: Proposals for the 2025 Budget Law

Rome, September 3, 2024 – “No one should think they can continue to cash in at the expense of the National Health Service and its professionals.” This is the strong and clear message launched by Antonio De Palma, President of Nursing Up, Pierino Di Silverio, National Secretary of Anaao Assomed, and Guido Quici, National President of Cimo-Fesmed, who have joined forces to defend the rights of doctors, nurses, and other health professions regulated by law 43/2006.

The representatives of the main professional organizations have presented their demands in view of the 2025 budget law, which will be discussed and presented to Parliament at the end of September. The stated goal is to relaunch a National Health Service (SSN) that has been struggling for years, improve working conditions for professionals, and stem the exodus of healthcare personnel who leave the profession well before retirement age.

The Main Demands of Healthcare Organizations

Di Silverio, Quici, and De Palma outlined the priorities that the Government must consider in the next budget law:

1. Structural investments in the SSN: Not only through new funding, but also through laws that promote a real relaunch of the public health system.

2. Make healthcare professions attractive: Through a hiring plan that reduces workload and improves conditions for professionals.

3. Increase in salaries and renewal of contracts: Adequate funding is needed for the renewal of contracts, including those of private hospital healthcare workers, with specific resources allocated to the healthcare sector.

4. Tax relief on allowances: Reduction of taxation on the medical specialty allowance, doubling of the nursing allowance, and its extension to midwives.

5. Measures against assaults in healthcare facilities: Request for concrete measures to stop the increase in episodes of violence against healthcare personnel.

6. Contractualization of residents: Improvement of working conditions for young doctors in training.

7. Recognition of the strenuous nature of care professions: The need to officially recognize the strenuous nature of healthcare professions, with consequent benefits for workers.

The organizations emphasize that the budget law is not the only tool to improve the SSN. “We are calling for a profound reform of the National Health Service, which is still based on Legislative Decree No. 502 of 1992, now obsolete and no longer compatible with the changes that have taken place in recent decades,” declare the representatives of the organizations.

De Palma, Di Silverio and Quici and conclude with a direct appeal to the Government: “These are our proposals, which we will pursue with determination. It is time for the Government to show whether it truly intends to defend the right to health, the only principle expressly declared fundamental in the Italian Constitution, or if it wants to abandon the SSN to its fate. We are ready to react accordingly.”

The demands of medical and nursing organizations represent a cry of alarm for the future of Italian public healthcare, calling for immediate action to guarantee the right to health and protect the SSN and its professionals.