The Italian health system is experiencing a period of strong crisis. Criticality are visible in many aspects both daily for patients, and in the structures where new hiring, renewal of contracts and salaries of adequate medical and health personnel are missing. Among the first initiatives to try to restore a system apparently in free fall, the provision of the Ministry of Health has arrived for the stop to contracts with the cooperatives that provide the so -called “jet doctors” for the emergency room.
However, it could be a problem, however positive the initiative is, because the risk is to leave a real emptiness of staff, and therefore immediate new hires are needed for doctors and nurses. According to experts, it therefore serves a reform that aims to restore the serious structural and staff deficiencies that afflict all Italian hospitals. Francesco Cognetti, president of the Forum of the scientific societies of Italian hospital and university clinicians, spoke about this. According to this, it is not enough to intervene with hiring to fill the void of staff, but wages must also be increased.
The plan to save the National Health Service
According to the President of the Forum of the Scientific Societies of Italian Hospital and University Clinics, Francesco Cognetti, a concrete, quick and complete reform of the public health system is needed. We need a reform, he writes, centered on some specific but particularly necessary objectives.
Identifies and reports some:
- Extraordinary hiring plan;
- increase in salaries for doctors and nurses;
- incentives for doctors and specializing in the most critical clinical areas;
- Introduction of new professional figures for innovation and research;
- increase in hospital beds;
- enhancement of the integration between hospital and territory.
More doctors and nurses paid better
By now even the least experienced people have noticed, the simple patients or those who try to book a specialist visit: the Italian health system is at the end of the strength. It can be seen from the long files, from the dates of increasingly distant visits, from the increase in visits diverted to private health facilities. There is a way to stop the fall, but it must be implemented quickly.
The first step is the extraordinary hiring plan. According to Cognetti, in fact, around 10,000 specialists and 20,000 nurses are needed to guarantee the continuity and quality of assistance, starting from the emergency room, where now the throw drivers are missing, up to the management of chronicity.
But how to entice to work in the sector? Tall salaries are needed for both doctors and nurses, both for those in service and for new hires. According to the President of the Forum of the Scientific Societies of Italian Hospital and University Clinics, the salary should be 2,000 euros net for doctors and 1,000 euros per month respectively for nurses.
It is a measure essentialhe says, to “enhance the skills and to contrast the growing escape of these professionals towards the private or foreign sector”. Targeted incentives for doctors and specializing in the most critical areas, such as emergency medicine, are also needed. There are calls for competitions, but very few are presented because the working and salary conditions are not advantageous.
Finally, further new professional figures would be needed such as Data Manager, Biostatistica, research nurses and artificial intelligence experts.
