Trieste – Summer is coming, we start talking about holidays. But for most healthcare workers, holidays are a mirage.
This is why the union CGIL – Public service of Friuli Venezia Giulia (Cgil Fp Fvg) in recent days requested and obtained from the Regional Directorate of Health data on overtime and unused holidays by workers in the healthcare sector.
From the report – the union says – it emerges that there are almost 1 million and 100 thousand hours of overtime provided, on average 55 hours per employee, And 410 thousand days of residual unused vacation accumulated at the end of the year, that means an average of three weeks per employee.
Another indicative parameter is that of recalls to duty and shift changesbeyond 27 thousand during 2023.
For the union these data «are the unequivocal measure of increasingly unsustainable level of stress weighing on public health workersfrom those who work in the sector up to the management”.
CGIL FP’s complaint: chronic staff shortage
Behind the worsening of shifts and working conditions for Cgil Fp there is the unresolved problem of shortage of staff. This is confirmed by the data recently released on negative balance (-162) with which 2023 ended in the number of employees working in the regional health service.
«We know – declares the regional secretary CGIL Fp Fvg Orietta Olivo – the justifications given by the councillor, who essentially blames the crisis on external causes, arguing that the Region is putting its hand to the hiring lever, but that the availability of operators, nurses and doctors is lower than the requirement and the number of participants in the selections lower than the number of places put up for competition, which is also insufficient in itself to cover the staff gaps”.
«We believe, however – continues the trade unionist – that there is also something behind this deficit a policy that for many years has been draining resources from the public to direct them towards private healthcare. This leads to a constant worsening of working conditions, the loss of the purchasing power of wages and the growth in levels of stress and wear and tear among staff: all of this is contributing to making public healthcare increasingly less attractive.”
Inefficient use of additional regional resources
According to the FP-Cgil, the lever of additional regional resources (RAR) is also poorly or underused. «This is demonstrated – claims Olivo – by the very choice to corporatise the negotiation tables, canceling the regional level and forcing the hand on an equalisation, then potentially reversed, which wanted to level the RAR on a regional scale without taking into account the specific situation of each individual agency. A situation that highlights strong fluctuations, as also emerges from the data on the use of overtime and the lack of use of holidays”.
The Region must do its part
If the answers must come above all from the national level, in terms of resources allocated to public health, renewal of contracts, relaunch of training and revision of university courses for access to the medical, nursing and healthcare professions, the Region too, according to CGIL Fp Fvg, must do its part.
The proposal is to «open a phase of relaunching negotiations and discussions between the social partners, calling into question the mantra of resorting to the private sector as a solution to chronic problems such as waiting lists».
