Nurses, politics and those who manage us have learned too little from the Covid Pandemic. And then yet another pat on the back.
Dear editorial staff of AssoCareNews.it,
I am Massimiliano Gentili, a nurse for about 15 years. The parade on 2 June saw us parade for the first time together with the armed forces. Yes, because we health workers too, with nurses and doctors on the front line, have faced a war without weapons, against an invisible enemy! All beautiful, moving, pride and pride of an entire nation!
But what has changed from two years to today?
The Pope, a few days ago, during the audience with the members of the Federsanità Confederation, warned those present by stating that the cuts to healthcare are an outrage to humanity. Adding that the pandemic has taught us that “save whoever can” quickly translates into “all against all”, widening the gap between inequalities and increasing conflict. Instead, we need to work so that everyone has access to care, so that the health system is supported and promoted, and so that it continues to be free.
I wonder, won’t this show be yet another pat on the back?
• By the INSTITUTIONS, which can no longer pretend not to recognize the value of nurses, especially after this pandemic that saw us face it with “bare hands” without suitable PPE, mostly in the first months, with courage and without never back down (we will never forget it!), unlike the institutional authorities who even today persist in pretending nothing has happened and not granting the application of the law towards us by allowing and in fact keeping silent about the wrong classification and sector, which they do not concern our profession in the least. The consequence is that to date, we are at the bottom with the lowest wages in Europe and in the world, an all-Italian legal gap!
As if this were not enough, this pandemic does not seem to have taught anything! Despite everything, to date, the institutions have done nothing congruous beyond thanking, because they continue to cut and not provide just and sufficient funds for health.
We are actually seeing the last train of the PNRR slip away for us nurses. Other than Community Homes, Community Hospital, Home Care / ADI (Integrated Home Care), Family and Community Nurses, managed by nurses only, as promised!
In fact it is only a chimera, because such realities can exist only if they are employed by the medical caste, other than “nursing autonomy”!
Forgetting that the labor lawyer frames the nurse, in the purely intellectual and cultural profile, prevailing over the manual one (art. 2229-2238 of the Civil Code); underlining that it has discretion, autonomy and irreplaceable in the execution of nursing care services in the same way, albeit with different skills and field of action, compared to those of other historically recognized health professions.
So by law, nurses ARE NOT subordinates or employed by the doctor, or worse labeled as paramedics (this figure does not exist here in Italy, in fact this term has a meaning to emphasize subordination or dependence on doctors!) , BUT THE EQUAL!
While the doctor CARES, the nurse TAKES CARE, each with their own PROTOCOLS and PROCEDURES, for the good of the patient!
We are losing sight of an essential point, that is, without HEALTH THERE IS NO FUTURE for anyone!
• By the most famous and prestigious trade unions such as the triad, who have always had an interest in nurses, helping them as they could. Lately, however, it seems as if they were gradually moving away from us, from our proposals, from our daily ailments, (forgetting that we are 465,000), remaining lukewarm to our requests, or doing very little. It seems they no longer have resolve or desire to defend our interests. For example, it is denoted by the episode of the contract renewal in the private health sector that happened a few years ago. After 14 years of exhausting and spasmodic waiting, nurses have seen their arrears reduced, in fact only seeing an increase of € 156 per month, debasing even more, a salary already comparable to 30 years ago!
Anyone who tried to rebel, highlighting this opprobrium, was silenced and labeled as a demagogue and a populist! (we will never forget it!)
• By FNOPI, which is responsible for supervising the conservation of DECORATION and INDEPENDENCE of the professions represented!
A question I ask, apart from the fact that OPI (and FNOPI in general) is not a trade union, what is DECOROUS in DEMANSIONING? And therefore in the replacement of our profession and professionalism by OSSS, you see the Veneto case with Zaia who is still trying, apparently succeeding! (1)
Forgetting that NURSES and OSS / OSSS are figures light years away from each other! (See my recent article The Difference Between Nurse and OSS? Simple, the first is classified as an employee, the second as a worker. – AssoCareNews.it – National Health Newspaper).
I repeat it for those who still do not have it very clear in mind, NURSES boast of an ACADEMIC / UNIVERSITY career of 10 YEARS, in fact one of the longest university courses ever! By placing NURSES / DOCTORS in the health area!
The OSS / OSSS boast of a one year course (soon it will be extended to 2 years), to obtain a certificate, placing them in the technical area! Without forgetting that NURSES have civil and criminal LIABILITY like doctors!
This alone would be enough to discourage any “contamination and / or trespassing” of roles in the health / assistance sector! Instead of hiring more nurses (there are now well over 70,000 missing) and OSS, there is a tendency to enhance the figure of the emerging OSSS, diminishing that of the current OSS, embarrassing!
According to them, all this would serve to reduce the costs for public and private hospitals, RSA, and in general for the NHS!
But let’s think about it a bit! Can all this be true?
We are forgetting a not insignificant detail! Being classified in the same way (employees / workers!) OSS and NURSES receive about the same salary, or slightly different for clearly different tasks from each other!
Let’s imagine that with the advent of the OSSS, (which can be placed above the OSS but below the nurse), this gap would be increasingly narrowed, in fact bringing the salaries between NURSES and OSSS almost overlapping!
So I wonder, WHERE IS THE SO MUCH PRAISED SAVINGS THAT THEY WANT US TO UNDERSTAND?
Hence, the malice of wanting to diminish, at all costs, the BASIC figure of NURSING assistance is evident and embarrassing, putting the integrity of patients at risk, not guaranteeing them assistance and quality services, who knows what shady plan for!
In addition, the OSS / OSSS are considered, by law, subordinate to nurses!
I wonder, in light of this, how do you go about accepting such a thing?
Where is the much vaunted INDEPENDENCE of the PROFESSION if for any action to be taken, even nursing, it is still necessary to warn the doctor (who treats, DO NOT TAKE CARE!), Not caring about the law, while our European colleagues do not have this peculiarity entirely Italian and are also drug prescribers !!! Where is this WATCH?
Now I turn to ALL OF US NURSES too often unable to be cohesive, for many reasons. Discouragement, lack of credibility in the institutions and of those who should watch over our dignity at work, unable to react, for having tried them all and not having achieved results. Or maybe because there are still those who think it is right that a nurse should do hygiene or whatever! Or he finds nothing strange to be employed by a doctor or anyone else, believing that by acting in this way, one can hide behind a finger, ignoring, according to the law, that one still has civil and criminal liability, despite who may think the on the contrary, having an archaic and retrograde vision of the nursing figure! If this were really the case, this whole way of thinking cannot be considered a mitigating factor, but rather an aggravating circumstance, because we ignore the laws in force that are on our side! When do we begin to be more cohesive for our interests and stop taking care of “our own backyard”, staying in “elite” wards, believing that this does not concern them, compared to a demoted colleague in an RSA, a department and what a fight for his rights! If this is the way of thinking, it would indicate a lot of foolishness! This concerns all of us, public, private, autonomous from north to south! There must be a unison struggle for the true recognition of the nursing category over the others!
Let’s wake up that we are already asleep, until we have time to be able to do it …!
Meanwhile, while we sleep, the other categories are looking after their own interests JUST !!!
(1) In the meantime, the Veneto region has published in the Official Bulletin the resolution of the Regional Council, by the councilor for Health Manuela Lanzarin, which launches the new path of “Complementary training in health care of the Social Health Operator” , at the center of numerous controversies, after the “red light” of the TAR and the Council of State, in fact, the Veneto had tried again to establish a complementary training course for the Oss, despite the unfavorable sentences, the resolution to solve the problem of shortage of nurses, but this time it seems to be reality!
If one day in your region a councilor or health councilor were to propose the promotion of the “prescriber nurse” of prescriptions (a figure already existing in Europe and in the world) or perhaps family nurse as a substitute for the general practitioner , how would the medical caste take it?
How are we taking it? Or passively, being silent in the face of all this? Thinking that there are protective bodies in charge, which act to our advantage?
In my opinion a mere illusion!
In fact, yesterday the controversy towards the Lombardy councilor for welfare Letizia Moratti who intends to carry out an experiment in some Asst where nurses will be employed as alternates to make up for the shortage of general practitioners!
A fact that finds the full opposition / indignation of the Italian Federation of General Practitioners: “Disrespectful words towards doctors and their work, but also towards nurses. As if the latter were “little doctors” and did not have a DISTINCT AND AUTONOMOUS PROFESSIONALISM!
It didn’t take much to FINALLY even the doctors to admit that nurses have their own distinct and autonomous professionalism and are not employed by them !!!
Think about it, dear colleagues, because in the meantime, we are seeing our field of action and our skills increasingly tighten, with embarrassing trespassing!
We want to wait for a regression of our profession returning forever relegated to the role of subordinates, not caring about current laws?
Do we really want to go back to before 1985 in the employ of the doctor relegating ourselves to the role of subordinate? I remember that (for now) the law prohibits it, recognizing the nurses’ working independence and full decision-making power and independent from figures who are part of the health team!
What must we wait to wake up and let our voice of 465,000 nurses thunder in unison, or the majority of the entire NHS?
We must all act together! An action aimed at exiting the sector and the right classification as PICTURES cannot be postponed!
Massimo GentiliMale nurse
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The difference between Nurse and OSS? Simple, the first is classified as a clerk, the second as a worker.