"The battle continues, the history of the achievements of Italian nurses is yet to be written. We cannot stop now, we cannot stop fighting: faced with these 100 euros per month of compensation just obtained, we Italian nurses, while not denying the historic value of a turning point resulting from our battles, must now more than ever continue to fight to achieve goals that seemed unexpected and that instead are now a small step closer".
Thus Antonio De Palma, President of the Nursing Up Union, coolly analyzes what has happened in the nursing world in recent days, announcing, for today, a new decisive meeting with the Sector Committee to discuss the numerous requests that healthcare professionals have been carrying forward for some time and which they do not intend to give up.
"Anyone who thinks that we will settle for this now is very wrong: it is not a question of ingratitude or about-face, we said a few days ago that it is indeed an epochal turning point in the last thirty years. No union, before us, and no one dares deny it, had managed to obtain all this. We are men and women accustomed to looking death in the face, to defending the health of Italians every day, more than ever at this time, and above all we give value to every cent earned with the sweat of our brow. Let alone if it is the first and long-awaited, albeit ungenerous, increase in our paycheck, which we have been asking for a long time. This does not change the fact that we are not happy, nor satisfied: the political class, public opinion, must know that this is not what we legitimately aspire to and what we deserve for the sacrifices that our professionalism is expressing in the field.
We now ask the Government and the Regions to integrate the resources allocated to us, which are absolutely unbalanced compared to the 500 million allocated to doctors.
Our battles in the squares and strikes are the plastic representation of our protests: but it is in the corridors and rooms of the hospitals that we concretize the physical and psychological efforts, the years of study, the grueling shifts at risk of life. This allowance, everyone must keep in mind, first of all the political class, is only the beginning of a long and consciously tortuous path that will however lead us to the desired result.
It makes us proud to have moved not only public opinion, but also the attention of all those unions that today are crying scandal over this increase in the paycheck, forgetting that if it had been up to them we would never have obtained it, because for a long time they never unsheathed their sword and much less have they ever fully embraced causes like this, which involve us all.
Where would we be now without these 100 euros? Undeniably in the darkness of indifference that has accompanied us for 30 years now, in the dangerous limbo of bitterly strangled screams, because no one has ever decided to take to the streets and strike with our determination and stubbornness.
This is only the dawn of the successes of Italian nurses, days of great satisfaction await us, still all to be written, concludes De Palma»
