TRENT. “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”. This is the message, loud and clear, delivered by the association of nursing professions of the province of Trento through a press release issued this morning and signed, on behalf of the board of directors, by the president Daniel Pedrotti.
“The difference in terms of effects on citizens’ health outcomes comes through i health professionals and their value passing through the population contributes to strengthening the culture of health in the community. Now is the time to point out that the main issue is the lack of healthcare professionals and in particular nurses in the workforce, but also of how to make the Trentino healthcare system attractive and even before that of how to retain its invaluable resource, human capital, in the system.
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 be able to effectively impact health outcomes and to give the right direction, the strengthening of structures and support staff to free nurses from improper activities e 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 care in which 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, health aids and care interventions/treatments, such as tool for applying specialist skills as already happens in several EU countries. Not only. We have to reform the competition rules of the public sector 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 healthcare system – territory, 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 that risk being trivialized in the political debate and that need to be addressed structural and non-extemporaneous reforms. Furthermore, it is necessary to continue the territorial reforms undertaken: in recent months there has been a lot of talk about hospital facilities and acute care and less about territory and prevention, but above all little has been said about what the Trentino territorial assistance model, of the integration and coordination mechanisms 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 services hospital.
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, solidarity-based and flagship of our Province”.
