by Eleonora Teresa Orlando
20 JUN –
Dear Director,
the Minister of Health Orazio Schillaci thinks of Indian nurses and super oss with short training to cope with the shortage of nursing staff both in hospitals, in nursing homes and in the area.
With this further letter we express our disagreement with the Minister’s latest statements regarding the solution to make up for the shortages of the nursing staff with the super oss with a short journey and personnel from abroad. We are fighting to obtain the enhancement of the oss to have a figure that is in step with the other NHS actors with notions that can bring relief to the nurse, but also a more competent and trained figure, and the Minister proposes a super oss with a shorter training? How do we consider the European model? What are we to expect super oss to become the jack of all trades, or be considered a dedicated care profession?
Of course, if you want to solve it quickly by drawing on a basin light years away from ours, it appears more like a maneuver to create further inconvenience as well as problems rather than solving them. The solutions are there and the Minister has them at home, and they have come from many fronts, but who knows, why is this Government deaf to real proposals, perhaps because they involve an effort and work for which there is no aptitude? Or is Italy no longer in control of solving problems without European impositions or international agreements?
The Minister speaks of European adaptation and then turns to India to recruit manpower, yes because this is what we are dealing with, not a revolution in the NHS but mere stop-gap actions, or patches; he also fears solutions with other non-European countries, as if Italy lacked resources. Of course the constant postponements and the biblical timing that are taken always lead to last minute alternatives (see the covid 19 emergency). How can you think that the figures of the welfare system are so interchangeable?
Where will these operators from India go to lend their services?. These operators will go to exercise in all those contexts where controls or surveillance are not active as in the public; places that have always been lacking in personnel due to poor incentives, starvation wages, backbreaking work, lack of application of law 81. For the umpteenth time the modus operandi will be to bring down the welfare system (RSA – RAA, Third Sector), it is obviously who will pay will be the fragile citizen. Big problems will arise, as has already happened in the past, reference will be made to canons of knowledge of the Italian language which will certainly not be real in the field.
No one denies that non-European universities are of a high level, but they should well know that training is not the same, and even in this there will be further problems, it won’t be a cultural exchange of methodologies it will become subjective imposition. This will send a tested system even more into a tailspin, at least in “some ways”.
Affirming that the social health worker has a lower level of training, and as such cannot be recognized in the two state laws, and cannot be considered in the health profession, as we consider him the oss with short training who must carry out nursing skills ?. There is a lack of goodwill to act and to apply state laws that would solve many problems.
It should start by conforming the current health and social health professions to those of Europe, a method which would also put a stop to the flight to other countries. He continues to repeat it in his speeches, but then it doesn’t materialize.
There is a need to analyze the current problems with answers that have already been defined to date, through two bills, the XII Social Affairs Commission of the Chamber has proposed motions that apparently have remained unheard.
At this point we no longer know where we will arrive. Resolutions arrive from many quarters, but as if nothing had happened, the Minister continues with “blinders”. We as the States General of the profession of the social health worker say No to this mess, what will the super oss be for? To attribute more activities to the current one?, or is it a figure who will have to make up for the inadequacy of the RSA or all those realities where basic nursing skills are needed to have low-cost manpower? And who will need the new one with short training?
And here we confuse the system further, with operators useful only to make up numbers, so then we will have private structures with carers (super oss – oss) managed by nurses from other states.
Equation is not only the one on paper, but it should be compared in a working environment with coaching staff who endorse the preparation. We listened to the Minister’s speeches, and we wondered if he has ever visited an RSA facility.
By now, insiders no longer seem to be experts in the sector and aware of the real problems and ready to solve problems, but are disinterested and only ready to hurry and remove the pebble, for this reason assistance does not evolve and we will find increasingly harassed and exploited by the work system since the issue linked to the lack of personnel is not resolved, nor is it able to resolve the criticality of the other professions and a real evolution of social and health workers, starting from low pay and workloads and from real training. A government that thinks only of reducing resources for the national health service from 2025 to levels below the European average.
We oss don’t want to steal anyone’s job, but where it’s convenient we can make up for the limit of legality, where it’s not convenient we need a nursing assistant because the oss is few. Dear Minister, in all these years of governments we have heard many proclamations, it is time to put in place extraordinary recruitment plans trying to remove the hiring caps.
This time we don’t close the missive with the hope of a response, or the opening of a worktable with our presence, let alone if the obss are worthy of attention; but in a democratic Italy everyone has the right to represent themselves, and the social and health worker represents himself in the States General, in the Migep Federation and in Shc OSS and has the right to be heard and to be part of the technical tables.
Eleonora Teresa Orlando
The States General Obs
June 20, 2023
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