Mattarella: 'Nurses army of good: prevent young people from going abroad'

The call to young people had come immediately before from Fnopi President Mangiacavalli. Under the slogan 'Born to care. Trained to excel', Mangiacavalli recalled that 'enhancing nursing means promoting organisational models that foster functional, healthy and safe working contexts, because they are the prerequisite for effective, person-centred care. It is necessary to promote clear and structured career developments,' he added, 'and to give, also from an economic point of view, recognition in line with the actual degree of specialisation, with the university qualifications obtained, and with the life plans of young nurses. To them, to young people, we must speak today. To those who have already chosen this profession and to those who are about to do so. It is their needs that we must listen to. The nursing profession must be for them the welcoming home to return to, but also the open ticket to freely choose who to be in society today".

The first professional boarding schools came into being just over one hundred years ago by Royal Decree. Today, even educational tools are more and more complete and qualifying: nursing, Mangiacavalli stressed, "is no longer an auxiliary profession, but an academic discipline with an exclusive object of study and a recognised scientific dignity. It has been a decade of demanding challenges to bring us into line with European standards. A commitment that in 2006 was sealed by the first PhDs, ideally closing the circle of higher education. Today, that vision is definitively fulfilled. The three new specialised courses, which flank the already consolidated Laurea Magistrale, represent the crowning achievement of a century of sacrifice and commitment. We started from the boarding schools to arrive at the top of the research and clinical levels'. The reference is to the ministerial decrees - registered in recent months - establishing three new Master's Degree courses in Nursing Sciences: Primary Care and Family and Community Nursing, Neonatal and Paediatric Care, and Intensive and Emergency Care.

But a real change of pace, is the warning coming from the nurses, is the National Health Service as a whole: "We are the daughters and sons of one hundred years of study and work, and today we assume the responsibility of being protagonists of the future of health care in our country," is Mangiacavalli's premise. "But today's health needs are not the same as yesterday's and, consequently, the answers must also evolve. A healthcare system called upon to deal with increasing complexity cannot limit itself to replicating outdated models, but must reorganise itself, enhancing the professional nursing presence. The pandemic has highlighted the need to strengthen territorial models and proximity, without diminishing the hospital, by investing in training, careers, and adequate economic recognition'.

These words were 'espoused' by Health Minister Orazio Schillaci: 'Today,' he said, 'we are called upon to deal with increasingly complex and multidimensional health needs, very often not only health, but socio-health. The role of nurses has become fundamental not only in direct care, but also in the management of care pathways, prevention, health education, and continuity of care. With the introduction of specialised master's degrees we want to respond to the more complex needs of a changing healthcare system and society. As President Mangiacavalli emphasised, it is not only a matter of expanding the educational offer and career opportunities for nurses - an objective that I also consider fundamental and rightful - but also of jointly enhancing that model of care that puts the person at the centre, and of influencing the evolution of your profession".