Nursing Up: 'Italy lacks 85-90 thousand nurses'
ROME 10 APR 2021 – «The recent intervention of the General Director of Censis, Massimiliano Valerii, does nothing but confirm what our union has been denouncing for months regarding the alarming figures regarding the shortage of nurses in our national health system».
So Antonio From Palma, National President of the Nursing Up.
«Censis has presented us with a careful and truthful analysis on the essential need for reform of our NHS, which is now deeply troubled and ravaged by the pandemic emergency, and which even before the double wave of the virus, presented a picture of profound discomfort caused by poor management, including lack of investment and spending cuts.
Covid, with the exponential increase in hospitalizations, and the obvious inability, on the part of sometimes outdated and inadequate structures, to face the impact of a fierce enemy and for the most part in the early days totally unknown to science, has done nothing but expose shortcomings that some were shamelessly ignoring.
But what was hidden under the ashes has unfortunately emerged. We presented ourselves to the virus with an already deep structural laceration of 53 thousand missing nurses throughout Italy (Fnopi 2019 data). However, last autumn we already quantified the shortage of healthcare professionals at 85-90 thousand and today, reading the data from the Censis survey, all this is bitterly confirmed to us.
Between the first and second waves we made no provision whatsoever to strengthen our healthcare workforce, with dribs and drabs of new hires that certainly do not compensate for years and years of blocked turnover and competitive exams that are at a standstill, with a few rare exceptions.
Disorganization, grueling shifts, precarious employment situations everywhere: this is how we faced the virus, leaving our soldiers “naked in the trenches”.
To date, Censis, more than a year after the start of the pandemic, quantifies the numbers relating to the lack of nurses in Italy at 72 thousand. The data ultimately match ours: because to these 72 thousand we must add the 9600 family nurses, envisaged by the Relaunch Decree, that the Government should have hired but which have remained pure theory for now, 8 for every 50 thousand inhabitants, which however may not be sufficient for the essential reform of territorial healthcare, and an average of about 3500-4000 more nursing units resulting from the need for new intensive care beds opened to deal with the emergency. These are the contradictions of our country: new departments are opening but there is a lack of staff to support the sick.
The health reform, continues De Palma, which the reconfirmed Minister Speranza hopes to implement, must pass through the indispensable strengthening of territorial health.
9600 family nurses represent only the tip of the iceberg compared to the needs of a country that with this indispensable figure could have streamlined hospitalizations and offered support to the health of the Regions, outside of hospital settings, well before this Covid left us with deep scars that have not yet healed".
Article published on 10 April 2021 - 21:01
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