Untraceable nurses, summer alert: hunt for them worldwide

Lombardy's Welfare Councillor Guido Bertolaso has already flown to South America to look for them together with doctors. The Minister of Health Orazio Schillaci, on the other hand, wants to recruit them from India and agreements have already been signed to facilitate their arrival. The latest are the two most important Catholic social-health institutions sponsored by the Italian Episcopal Conference itself, which manage 1370 facilities with a total of 115,000 beds and have decided to hire about a thousand a year from developing countries with Catholic universities and missionary communities. We are talking about nurses, the most untraceable and sought-after of health personnel. Even more than doctors. Already today there is a shortage of at least 65-70 thousand, but there will be more in the coming years. And now with the arrival of summer, the shortage emergency will be felt more strongly.

ForBeatrice Mazzoleni, secretary of the National Federation of Nursing Professionals (Fnopi), "in the next four years the current cadre of around 460,000 nurses will lose more than 100,000" due to the massive exodus of nurses from Italian hospitals. A loss that already by 2022 "will weigh on our health system with a shortage of about 65 thousand nurses". But which, warns the secretary of the nurses' federation, is destined "to get worse and worse" due to retirements, resignations, and transfers abroad where the economic treatments are notoriously higher than those recognised for Italian nurses. The problem is also linked to the fact that not enough nurses graduate in Italy: in the last 10 years only about 12,000 a year, too few compared to the needs. In addition, there is a flight from enrolment, given that at the selection (there is a closed number, as in Medicine) there are practically as many candidates as there are places available, if not in some cases even fewer.

'A time bomb'. This is how the nurses' union Nursing Up defines the staff shortage situation that 'is ready to explode in the summer months'. Among the regions most in difficulty, in first place are Lombardy, where there is a flight of nurses abroad, and Campania, with emergency rooms on tilt. The figure emerges from a survey by the Nursing up trade union, which shows that in the regions most affected by the phenomenon there is an average of 12-13 patients under management for each nurse. "An average," he observes, "that goes well beyond that of a maximum of six patients in order to have quality healthcare". While competitions for nurses mostly end up deserted due to meagre economic offers, the research points out, "there is a risk of at least 10 per cent of beds being cut due to staffing deficits. Some wards could be merged or even closed. Emergency-urgency areas are in danger'. And also in the summer, 'at least 30% more patients are expected in the emergency rooms, which will be absolutely unmanageable for the skeleton staff in health facilities from North to South. Nurses' holidays could be skipped'.

"It is a mission impossible become possible," explained don Massimo Angelelli, director of the Italian Episcopal Conference's National Office for Health Pastoral Care, at the presentation of the 'Samatitanus Care' project at the Foreign Press headquarters in Rome. It is about - he explained - the plan launched by Aris and Uneba, the two Catholic social-health institutions sponsored by the Italian Episcopal Conference itself, to hire nurses with degrees from Catholic universities in developing countries to work in Italian hospitals and nursing homes. A project, conceived in 2021 at the height of the pandemic. "The Samaritanus Care project is intended to provide a concrete and possibly decisive response to these problems in the near future," explains Father Angelelli, adding that the initiative, "also welcomed by Health Minister Schillaci", envisages the identification of nurses with degrees from Catholic universities around the world to be brought to Italy to "be employed in Catholic social-health institutions" for a period of at least three years.

Already more than a year ago, Health Minister Schillaci had announced a plan to go looking for nurses in India. In this sense, a memorandum of understanding was also signed by Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni herself during her last visit to India. Since then the project has run into bureaucratic and entry problems for nurses who will also have to attend language courses before working in our hospitals. But the intention is there: "The arrival of Indian professionals is a topic that has been brought to the attention of the State-Regions Conference," Schillaci emphasised. "In Italy, nurses are the real problem in terms of staff shortages. We are among the last in Europe for their number compared to the population, so in the immediate future it is essential to bring in personnel from abroad'. Meanwhile, in recent weeks Lombardy's Welfare Councillor Guido Bertolaso has flown to South America to try to hire nurses and even doctors, but this has stirred up quite a bit of controversy.