12.01 – Monday 17 June 2024
(The following text is taken entirely from the press note sent to the Opinion Agency) –
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Recognizing the value of nurses means investing in the healthcare system and contributes to strengthening the culture of health in the community. Now structural reforms are needed to reverse the trend. The difference in terms of effects on the health outcomes of citizens passes through health professionals and their value passing through the population contributes to strengthening the culture of health in the community.
Now is the time to underline that the main issue is the lack of health professionals and in particular nurses in the workforce, but also of how to make the Trentino health system attractive and even before that of how to retain its invaluable resource in the system, the human capital. It is a path that is not enough to invoke, it requires short and medium-long term strategies and planning. There is a need for economic investments; to reform some rules, including the reduction of the personnel spending ceiling; to recognize the value and specificity of nurses in contracts; of organizational interventions, including the expansion of career paths in the clinical, healthcare, training and organizational fields, which are currently insufficient to effectively impact health outcomes and to give the right direction, the strengthening of structures and support staff to free nurses from improper activities and the implementation of innovative organizational models with high autonomy for health professions to be able to continue to respond effectively and efficiently to the health needs of citizens.
For example, the essential levels of assistance in which the nursing care branches are completely lacking are established by national law even if the Province could provide them autonomously with additional costs and authorize nurses to prescribe aids, medical devices and interventions/ welfare treatments, as a tool for applying specialist skills as already happens in several EU countries. Not only. We must reform the competition rules for public employment because the current mechanisms are completely inadequate and recognize the value of the nursing profession also economically with dedicated and targeted incentives to retain professionals in the provincial-territorial healthcare system, RSA and hospital -, to attract them, particularly in specific valleys where the shortage is particularly serious and to enthuse young people in undertaking the university course to become nurses.
These are thorny and difficult issues which risk being trivialized in the political debate and which require structural and non-extemporaneous reforms. Furthermore, it is necessary to carry forward the territorial reforms undertaken: in recent months there has been a lot of talk about hospital facilities and acute care units and less about territory and prevention, but above all little has been said about what the Trentino territorial assistance model will be, about the mechanisms of integration – integration and coordination of professionals. The territory is instead a central element of well-being and services to citizens: only with a territorial service that works, can the health conditions of people and the community be improved and, therefore, reduce the number of acute patients who will need assistance – hospital tions.
This is why the Order of Nursing Professions of the Province of Trento hopes, as already confirmed by Councilor Tonina with whom the dialogue is open and constructive, to be involved in decisions with institutional unity in wanting to work to reform a system that will be able to maintain the provincial health service as universal, supportive and the pride of our Province.
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For the Board of Directors
President
Dr. Daniel Pedrotti
