Ivan Testa, Nurse, writes to us. He says he is disheartened: “those who like me have chosen to undertake this profession now realize they have made a big mistake of evaluation”.
Dear Director,
me too as the reader and colleague Marta I am unfortunately a nurse. I say unfortunately because after 20 I realized that anyone like me who does this profession in Italy has made an error of assessment.
The mistake lies in having thought that the nurse was an indispensable and integral part of health care but in Italy this is not the case.
During the pandemic we were called heroes but in practice many people cannot tell the difference between a nurse and an OSS.
I have seen patients go to shake hands with the doctors and tell them thank you, doctor who treated me when maybe the doctor in question saw the aforementioned patient 20 minutes in a week while the nurse who lived the patient all week with exhausting shifts be completely forgotten.
I have seen colleagues cry silently during the pandemic on the stairs before the shift and I have seen them do their work with a smile I have seen colleagues get sick and risk dying for a salary of 1500 € a month.
I have heard from the nursing school that we are the sole principal of nursing as if that really mattered and I have seen much more time being spent on subjects like anthropology than cardiology or surgery, I have seen students fail mercilessly just for not knowing answer a research question.
I have seen people rejected by the Opi for arriving two minutes late at the office considering that it is open 2 days a week and 2 hours at a time as well as having rightly increased the cost of registration.
I’ve seen colleagues go to war just to curry favor with the doctor on duty.
And now I’m feeling the birth of this new figure who will have to make up for the continuing shortage.
Until we have an adequate salary that can give us prestige and importance to public opinion it is normal for this to happen I myself am the first that I advise against anyone who asks me to take up this profession because you risk jail and lately in addition to insults even the blows and the Opi are silent.
The nurse is the prostitute of health in the sense that he must know how to do everything and be with everyone to have a well-defined area an example, he must know how to mobilize a patient so he must be a bit of a physiotherapist, he must know how to reassure patients even in the worst moments so he must be a bit of a psychologist, he must know how to support the doctor even in the bureaucratic part so he must be a bit secretary, he must know how to clean and feed a sick person so he must be a bit Oss or ASA, he must know how to make punctures, withdrawals, dressings put catheters etc so he must be a nurse, he must know how to advise the patient on therapies and side effects so he must be a bit of a doctor, but he cannot decide anything independently even to give a Tachipirina because if something happens God does not want the complaint is behind the corner.
Thirty exams, some of which absolutely useless for the profession and 3600 hours of obviously unpaid internship to become what?
Nurse profession considered like an employee or a worker, 1000 of school and perhaps 500 of internship to become OSS very useful figure if put to support the other salary € 1300-1400 without civil and criminal liability and a school where they enroll in 10 and at least 9 are promoted.
Now maybe someone will understand why nobody wants to do it anymore and that even those who do try to change, someone does it by taking the head nurse course thus avoiding holidays and weekends someone totally changing their life and I say they do very well and if we go on like this do not complain if the deaths in hospital will increase and do not wait for another pandemic to praise a profession that everyone is trying to kill especially the parliamentarians and I must say that you are doing it great.
Sorry for the outburst, but this is only a small part of the truth that the nurse is forced to endure.
Best regards.
Ivan TestaNurse
Read also:
Marta, Nurse: “the Super-OSS is the definitive end of the Nurse”.