Health, Nursing Up De Palma: «We are very worried about the peak of infections among health workers, with a percentage of 50% more newly infected, in hospitals, in the last seven days alone. Veneto, Emilia Romagna and Campania collapsed due to lack of personnel ».
«The new spike in infections among health professionals, linked to what experts say, to a new sub-variant of Omicron, seriously risks bringing to its knees the already fragile foundations of a health system that is largely faltering of its own.
In the last seven days alone, analyzing the ISS data, it is highlighted that we have gone from an average of 534 infected, to one of 833 professionals per day, so we are at a peak of over 50%.
The numbers reflect the Gimbe alarm which speaks of 55% more new infections at national level “.
So Antonio De Palma, National President of Nursing Up.
«After all, how can we deny that nurses are always the most exposed to risk: and the INAIL data have certainly not changed and highlight that over 80% of the healthcare personnel who are infected belong to our professional category.
While on the one hand the peak of new infections cannot leave us indifferent and it is therefore necessary to activate all the protection mechanisms for health workers, on the other hand the chasm that risks opening up in hospitals, with a structural shortage of 80 thousand nurses, to whom add those infected who in fact remain at home in isolation and health workers on vacation, it can become truly unbridgeable.
At this time, our regional representatives refer us to very delicate situations in the hospitals of Veneto, Emilia Romagna and those of Campania.
In the eye of the storm there is once again the Cardarelli of Naples, where they tell us about nurses, in wards such as orthopedics and physical medicine, forced again to 12-hour shifts.
A situation that is not new, but that certainly cannot go under the radar, as if we were experiencing absolute normality.
The problem is further aggravated by the fact that, in many cases, in the afternoon and night shift there is not even the support staff for the activities connected to it and which fall on the nurse present, with the consequent demotion.
From Piacenza to Rimini the number of infected people among the health personnel in Emilia Romagna rises. At the moment, 1,300 health workers are in isolation, about 3% of the total.
Here we risk a new collapse, continues De Palma. And above all, it seems clear that two years of the pandemic have taught us nothing. Without a brave hiring plan we could really be facing a caporetto.
At this point we believe that the Government should make available, as part of an indispensable prevention plan, a vaccine that is above all effective against Omicron 5, which can be used by all those healthcare professionals who deem it appropriate to undergo a new dose, namely the fourth.
We need clear regulations in this regard, but at this moment we believe it more necessary than ever, we must also recall the position of that part of nurses that is contrary to a new regulation which, in some way, extends the mandatory nature of the vaccine. .
Science agrees that, with respect to the past and with the current variants, the collective risk cannot be considered superimposable to that induced by the previous versions of Sars Cov 2.
Today, providing for a new provision that further extends the vaccination obligation for health professionals is not necessary for us, if we consider the almost total percentage of subscriptions to vaccination campaigns already reached among the latter.
Let us not forget that here we are talking about a very delicate context, which tingles the sphere of human and personal choices and rights and, consequently, that of the dignity of every single professional, and among these also those few who cannot or do not consider themselves having to be vaccinated, which would once again be induced to a new administration, under penalty of losing their salary.
Now, we do not allow ourselves to go straight into the speech of those who argue that a new and further dose of vaccine could have negative effects on the immune system, we leave this to the experts, but we consider it appropriate to safeguard the interests of nurses and others. health professionals, even those few who make different choices, as long as they are legitimate, and with them their dignity as human persons and professionals ”, concludes De Palma.