The union comments on the announced arrival in Lombardy of 500 South American nurses by the end of the year: “Bertolaso dangerously disavows what the Regions themselves requested in the policy act, namely that the priority is to remedy the shortage of nurses starting first of all from our professionals and acting on the contractual leverage intended for all those who already work in the NHS”.
04 APR – “We find ourselves listening, between surprise and bitter disappointment, to the umpteenth proclamations of the Councilor for Welfare of the Lombardy Region, Guido Bertolaso who, alongside Governor Fontana, in the last few hours has launched into real proclamations, accompanied recently understandable triumphalist tones, proudly announcing the “new purchasing campaign” of nurses in Latin America, which should bring around 500 foreign healthcare professionals to Lombardy healthcare companies by the end of the year”. This was declared in a note Anthony De Palmanational president of Nursing Up, according to whom “it’s like trying to cure severe pneumonia with cough syrup, only to be surprised if the patient dies in the end”.
“When reading the contents of Bertolaso’s communication campaign – continues De Palma – we cannot help but reflect on the fact that, more than ever in this historical moment, both he and the leaders of the Regional Government seem really short of ideas. We cannot and do not want to think that there are no alternative solutions to this, with all due respect to the nurses of Paraguay and Argentina: above all we believe it is once again paradoxical that, while we are trying to plug the leaks with professionals who in fact do not know our language and the rules of our healthcare system, it is not possible in any way to stem the flight of our excellences abroad, whose exodus, alongside voluntary resignations, increasingly weakens our healthcare, to the natural detriment of quality of protecting the health of the community”.
“Italian nurses – insists the president of the union – are indispensable, we will never stop repeating it, and it is unimaginable not to think of rebuilding our healthcare system, from North to South, without concretely valorising the forces we have at home and without putting a solution plan has been put in place to restore appeal to our profession and create an indispensable generational change”.
For Nursing Up, “on the one hand, the Government, promises to eliminate the plague of waiting lists and says he intends to cancel the spending limits of professionals, demonstrating, at least in words, that he has understood that only by incentivising our doctors and our nurses, in view of enormous new expenditures of energy, we can get a healthcare system that is moving terribly slowly, caged in the chaos of deficits, disorganization and inconveniences, back on track. On the other hand, Bertolaso and Fontana only think of hiring foreign health professionals, presenting their project as the panacea for all ills, but above all dangerously disavowing what the Regions themselves have expressly requested in the document addressing the new contract, namely that priority is to remedy the shortage of nurses by acting on the contractual leverage intended for all those who already work, and restore appeal to the employment relationship, as well as restoring psycho-physical serenity to our healthcare professionals”.
With this modus operandi, for the union, “we concentrate, instead, on importing operators from abroad, with a serious negative imbalance in the overall quality of short/medium term assistance, as the operators involved have to learn our language and are called upon to deal with knowledge and different and complex knowledge, because it comes from other training systems”.
“And then – concludes De Palma – how long does Bertolaso think these operators will remain in Italy, when a few kilometers from them they will always have welcoming Switzerland, ready to give them double the Italian salary?”.
04 April 2024
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