A large part of the Rsa of Piedmont runs the risk of run out of nurses. And this means that it will be difficult to provide adequate assistance to the guests present in the structures. Michele Colaci, vice president of Confapi Sanit, does not hide its apprehensions for a sector severely tested by the pandemic. Leaving behind the dark period of the early months of 2020, when the RSA came under accusation for the many deaths caused by Covid, now we look to the future. But doubts and uncertainties remain. To worry about the shortage of staff. An endemic problem, but which is now in danger of worsening. The factors that determine this suffering are many: what is certain there is a flight of nursing staff from RSAs.
Public health in recent times offers advantageous contracts by virtue of the particular emergency situation. A legitimate choice, but resources remain subtracted from private health and social care, explains Colaci. There are about 1,800 nurses hired by Aso and Asl without being seconded – he underlines Michele Assandri, president of Anaste -. And this puts our structures in difficulty. There is also a lack of general practitioners available to take care of guests in a systematic way. Regional estimates say that over the next three years, at least three thousand new nurses will be needed also to implement home care which during the pandemic showed all its shortcomings. Numbers that clash with the scarce supply on the part of the university education system. need to rethink training. It is a question of overcoming the limited number rule for access to the faculty: if you do not want to abolish it, at least the audience of those who can access should be widened, suggests Colaci.
The theme of vaccinations has an impact. About 2,000 non-immunized Piedmontese nurses and osss work in facilities for the elderly: they represent about 5 per cent of employees. We do not have the lists yet and therefore no one has been suspended – explains Colaci -. The Region in serious delay: the names should have arrived in April, then problems related to privacy arose. The fact is that unvaccinated staff continue to work. This is a problem for the safety of employees and guests, who are fragile subjects and must be protected.
Despite the many difficulties, the sector is trying to overcome the crisis that began 18 months ago: first because of the virus that hit guests with a real massacre, then the blockade of the entrances (still few today). We are 78 per cent of the seats occupied – calculates the vice president of Confapi -, still far from that pre-pandemic 90 per cent. The geriatric assessment units have recently started to arrange access to the RSAs, but we are far from an economic equilibrium. Also, there are facilities that cannot accept guests because they don’t have nurses. The most critical situation for medium-sized RSAs (about 60 beds). And dramatic for the small ones (about 30 beds) – comments the president of Anaste -. For about one hundred Piedmontese structures, the activity is expected to cease at the end of the year.
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29 August 2021 | 20:36
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