Mobbing, paura, infermieri. Lettera di una collega.

Greetings to all colleagues, I am a nurse, I am not Italian, I wanted to share my experience in an ASP and I apologize if there may be any mistakes.

On October 15 I wanted to join the protest organized by Nursing Up in Rome, I really cared about it, everything was organized together with other colleagues.

I asked for a day off to be free, but at the last minute a colleague got sick, so I was called back to work.
I spoke with my union, a generic one, to find a solution, I really wanted to go to the protest, but I received a blunt answer from the union representative: "This is not the time to protest!"

I supported my colleagues as much as I could via Facebook, who then had the luck to represent us in Rome.
I tried to raise awareness among as many nurses as possible about the protest but it seemed that where I work, I'm the only one interested in protesting.

This is one of the anxieties I feel.
It seems that protesting, striking, is something wrong that shouldn't be done, that we nurses absolutely must not do or even think about doing, as if we had no rights, problems, children, as if we didn't need money, as if we nurses, if we got sick or were sued, it was something to be already accounted for in that miserable, small, mortifying little unskilled worker's salary (no offense to workers, who however do not risk jail, damages, or bringing diseases to their children or contracting them).

I often find myself alone thinking this way.

I think many colleagues know or can imagine the situation in nursing homes! I think there's no need to add much to the imagination.

I was enrolled in a generalist union for 6 years, I realized that it is not the union for me, nor for us health workers. I gave my money away without anything in return.
I thought that by joining a big union I would be protected, but in reality I only suffered a phase of mobbing that also led me to a psychophysical breakdown. Without anyone protecting me.

For many years I suffered from asthenia, I also did a series of cardiological checks, etc.

Fortunately I managed to find the strength to recover, but it was hard.

Even though I was enrolled in a union of a certain standing, but only on paper, I felt like my employer was holding a knife to my throat!;

"I give you the job, So it's fair that you feel the 'knife to your throat!'"
So what was the point of being enrolled in this union for six years?
I tried to talk to my colleagues, to make a team and ask for our rights, at least the basic ones.
In the end I got nothing, I was left alone.

Only mobbing and physical exhaustion.
I even went to the mobbing help desk, they told me it's hard to prove.
The director was more informed than me, I said everything.
I thought I would find a different reality in Italy, but I noticed that especially in the private sector there is a lot of fear of joining organizations that fight for rights, for category unions.

For now I'll stop here.
But I still have a lot to tell.
THANK YOU.
A fellow NURSE