VIDEO| Shortage of nurses, “We need a plan to attract students”. We start with a commercial
The professional association and the rectors of Italian universities team up to fill a "gap" of 65 thousand nursing graduates
ROME – “We want to make this important profession more attractive not only economically, but also with better career prospects. A fundamental step in this direction is the evolution of the nursing profession towards university specializations to respond to the challenges of the future and to guarantee increasingly qualified and efficient healthcare”. With these words, the Minister of Health Orazio Schillaci opened, in his message, the meeting ‘Challenges and opportunities of the nursing profession’ organized by Fnopi (National Federation of Orders of Nursing Professions) < /strong>e Crui (Conference of Rectors of Italian Universities).
An institutional comparison and an opportunity to illustrate the potential of the profession, the persistent critical issues and the crucial role represented by university education in future developments of the Health System.
THERE ARE 65 THOUSAND NURSES MISSING IN ITALY , “IT’S A COUNTRY PROBLEM”
The initiative was intended as a moment of analysis and connection between what young people ask for their future and the answers that the nursing profession can give them as a life choice. Today the shortage of nurses in Italy is at least 65,000 units, according to the Court of Auditors, but in the next ten years, at least four times as many professionals will leave the profession after reaching age limits, compared to the previous decade .
Italy is the OECD country with the fewest nurses per 1,000 inhabitants: 6.4 against a European average of 9.5 and our country is at the bottom (always in the OECD) for nursing graduates every 100,000 inhabitants: only 17 against an average of 48. Without a structural intervention capable of restoring attractiveness to the profession and rebalancing the workforce, the shortage no longer remains a problem of the profession, but becomes of the country and citizens,because without nurses there is no future. Without nurses there is no health and there is no assistance for an increasingly elderly, fragile and lonely population.
FNOPI: “WE NEED STRUCTURAL SOLUTIONS AND REGULATORY CHANGES”
“The possible structural solutions – underlined the Fnopi president Barbara Mangiacavalli – are based on three priorities: increase in the contractual basis and economic recognition and exclusivity of the nursing professions; recognition of the skills practiced; evolution of the university educational path, with specializations”. To achieve the objectives, the Fnopi proposals also include some regulatory changes. The first is law 43/2006 which regulates healthcare professions and establishes an expansion of skills by providing specialists with a real clinical master’s degree. In a process started with the Ministry of Health, the Ministry of University and Research, the National University Council, the Conference of the Degree Courses of the Health Professions, the foundations have been built to arrive at the implementation of arevision of the Master’s Degreeswith the identification of three areas of specialist development: Primary Care, pediatric and neonatal, intensive and emergency care.
“ENSURE THE QUALITY OF TEACHING AND TRAINING”
Then, fundamental to guarantee the quality of teaching and training is the application and monitoring of the University-Regions guidelines and memoranda of understanding, with recognition of the activity of the nurses of the National Health Service who provide training.
In Italy, since the 2010-2011 academic year the loss of attractiveness of the profession linked to low pay and the impossibility of concrete career development has led to a progressive reduction in demand, in the face of increase in places availableto try to stem the strong nursing shortage. We reached 23,627 candidates for 20,337 places available, reaching 1.2 applications per place, with Regions, especially in the North, recording even less than one application per place.
The video ‘NextGen Nurses< /strong>‘, presented during the meeting, aims to redefine and renew the perception of the nursing profession, revealing a world of opportunities and possibilities that this choice can offer to new generations. A video that Fnopi symbolically handed over to Crui, with the intention of distributing it to all Italian universities to encourage the recruitment of new future nurses expected with the test in September.