Sostituire l’infermiere con altre figure non riduce la mortalità.

Italy needs nurses, the Italian population is one of the oldest in the world: almost 20% are over 65 years old and, according to ISTAT data, in 2050 about 8% of Italians will be over 85 years old.

The Italian healthcare system, which is already faltering, will not be able to withstand these changes.

OECD Report 2008: 17,000 retirements per year compared to 8,000 hires per year among nurses. Worse than us? No one, among the countries considered to be at the forefront.

Italy has fewer nurses than doctors, the highest number of doctors per capita in the world: more than 600 doctors per 100,000 inhabitants in 2005. Italian universities do not train enough nurses, with a shortage of about 60,000 units.

The OECD points out that the Italian healthcare labor market suffers from a chronic lack of funds, few career opportunities, nepotism, ridiculously low salaries below the European average. The result is that more and more nurses are resigning, students are dropping out already in the first year.

A worrying fact that emerges is the desire to change jobs as soon as possible. 36% of Italian nurses would leave the country immediately.

To solve the chronic shortage of nurses, some regions have created new professional roles, others like Veneto are trying, other regions hire staff from abroad, often with unclear verification of qualifications and skills...all these regions ignore what international evidence says:

According to a study conducted in Great Britain, confirmed by other renowned studies such as RN4CAST, when nurse management goes from 10 to 6 patients, mortality drops to 20%.

The authors specify that replacing the nurse with other figures does not reduce mortality. Please explain this to the Veneto region.

We at Nursing Up have always said it at the important tables, more nurses means fewer deaths, fewer illnesses, fewer infections and less public spending. Unfortunately, politics in Italy only looks at the big numbers of votes.

Category unions, although always growing and the generalist ones always declining, still have much lower numbers of votes, without a majority you cannot rule.

As long as nurses and other healthcare professionals do not understand this, it will be useless to hope, it will be useless to complain, nothing will ever change. We will always be the last wheel of the wagon.

Let me explain, when the bank clerk from Uil, the worker from Cgil, the accountant from Fials and the plumber from Cisl sit in front of politics, no matter how honest and proactive they are, they will only speak by hearsay about what healthcare workers need, and they have no idea what they are talking about.

Only a nurse knows what a nurse goes through in the wards, at night, in an emergency, a death, a shortage, what risks, the workload, what they endure, and only the nurse can represent health professionals.

Let me give an example, in Italy we are the first country in Europe for antibiotic resistance, the 7, 10 percent of patients develop a multi-resistant bacterial infection with thousands of deaths per year. Healthcare-associated infections affect about 284,100 patients every year causing about 4,500-7,000 deaths (450,000 by 2050). If in Italian wards the nurse-patient ratio were 1 to 6, infections would drop drastically, and international evidence has been saying this for at least 10 years.

Healthcare assistance, due to the aging of the Italian population, will require ever greater commitment. Diseases are increasing, mortality is increasing, costs are increasing.

Is there a solution? Yes, you just have to want it.

There are solutions, and they can only come from category unions, unfortunately we live in a situation of incompetence and lack of knowledge.

1) The money is there, just move it, optimize its use. Since 2006, excluding 2009, Italy has had more income than expenses.

2) Complete the rankings

3) Hire all eligible colleagues, temporary and unemployed

4) increase salaries by at least 600 euros, making a profession full of risks, responsibilities and workloads more attractive.

5) Recognize the many rights that are not granted, remove exclusivity, clearance, etc.

6) Allow universities to train many more students

We repeat, as long as nursing category unions do not have a full majority, nothing will ever change.

We have been waiting for 40 years, and we will surely continue to wait, at least until the next RSU.