In Italy a real is emerging health crisis: Nurses are missing. To photograph the state of health of the profession is the latest report Fnopi (National Federation of Orders of Nursing Professions), which highlights a difficult picture.
Despite the high satisfaction for the quality of assistance (84%), the internal malaise of the category increases, between heavy workload and a general lack of professional recognition. According to the investigation, the report of nurses per inhabitants is less than the international average.
Also evident strong regional differences, as well as a chronic lack of nursing presence in the strategic roles of public health. The salary is low and very variable depending on the areas, for a total of 65 thousand nurses who are missing from the appeal.
How much nurses earn in Italy
The average salary of a nurse In Italy it is 32,400 eurosaccording to what reported by the new report on the profession. A figure clearly lower than average Europeanwhich stands at 39,800 euros. Extremely distant, therefore, from the countries with higher wages such as:
- Luxembourg;
- Germany;
- Netherlands.
In these nations, the highest pay allows you to retain staff and improve the quality of assistance.
But even within the Italian borders there is a gap. In Trentino-Alto Adige a nurse can get to 37,204 euroswhile in Molise We stop at 26,186 euros. In the regions of the South such as Campania and Calabria, on the other hand, the average salary remains below 30,000 euros. THE
The remuneration and organizational disparity is one of the factors of the current crisis: Italy has only 6.5 nurses every 1,000 inhabitantswell below the European average of 8.4. And if you consider only the public staff, the figure falls to 4.79. There Lombardyfor example, is among the worst With just 3.53 public nurses per 1,000 inhabitants.
According to the report, almost 30% of nurses think they change their jobs and 45% in the hospital departments evaluate to leave the profession within a year. The main causes are just too low salaries, chronic staff deficiency and few career possibilities.
In detail the regions with higher and low salaries are:
- Trentino-Alto Adige with 37,204 euros;
- Emilia-Romagna with about 35,000 euros;
- Molise with 26,186 euros;
- Campania with less than 30,000 euros;
- Calabria with less than 30,000 euros.
The reasons for the escape from the profession
Always using the report as a basis for analysis, it turns out that almost 30% of nurses often evaluate to change work or operating unit. The reasons, as we said, are excessive workloads (the number of new graduates is not enough to compensate for retirements) and the salary, but factors such as defined inhuman shifts, dissatisfaction with social recognition and the lack of voice in the corporate decision -making processes also come into play.
The Covid-19 pandemic had turned on the spotlight on the value of the profession, but the effects were temporary. Today the staff suffers from it: the Burnout remains very high in some departments, with peaks of dissatisfaction that reach 75% in the most critical sectors.
Nursind’s national secretary, Andrea Bottegaexplained in an interview what is the feeling of professionals in recent years. According to Bottega, in fact, the memory of the pandemic, and the heroic image of the nurses, has been removed.
The approach has changed, the attention has shifted to new problems related to waiting lists and the integration of the emergency rooms. Unfortunately, you are still sailing on sight and the promise of enhancing the profession has remained such.
He continues explaining how nothing was done, if not in two sectors: the emergency room staff and the deduction for those who make extra time to reduce waiting lists. Therefore, a concrete action is missing to make the nursing profession attractive (from which young people keep away), to recognize its value and therefore cover that number of missing places (65 thousand units).
Who pays (really) for the crisis of the profession
Unfortunately, patients are paid to pay the highest price. With fewer nurses, the clinical risk increases and the quality of assistance decreases and the times of taking charge are extended. The evidence collected in the report explain how when the numerical relationship between nurses and patients is reduced, both hospital mortality and “adverse events” grows.
But not only. Doctors are also more exposed, forced to cover operational and management roles that would be up to the nursing staff. So the families often find themselves traveling from south to north and enduring extra costs to guarantee adequate assistance to loved ones.
