(Finance) – “The shortage of nurses in our country is an emergency that must be addressed with seriousness, speed and planning capable of rebuilding an effective and efficient healthcare network throughout the national territory. We expect concrete interventions from the Government to improve the organization of services offered to citizens and initiatives to make the most of this profession, making it more attractive. In fact, the data from the 19th CREA Sanità Report are worrying, indicating how between 2003 and 2021 the number of nurses per 1,000 inhabitants over 75 went from 61.0 to 52.3, with a gap of 60,950 units and a dangerously worsening situation, just as the fact that 22,957 candidates took part in the entrance tests for the degree in nursing for 20,059 places should be alarming, with a question/place ratio of 1.1″. This is stated Luigi Baldini, President of ENPAPI, the National Agency for Social Security and Assistance for the Nursing Profession, to which self-employed nurses are compulsorily registered, commenting on the results of the 19th Report of CREA Sanità, a research center recognized by Eurostat, Istat and the Ministry of Health.
According to Baldini, there also remain “strong differences in nursing care at a regional level, with the central and southern regions most penalized. These territorial differences can no longer be tolerated and justify and it is useless to allocate resources if tools and opportunities are not put in place to guarantee people’s right to health”. In this perspective, adds the President of ENPAPI, “rethinking in the Lea circuit the work that freelance professional nurses carried out in the area would offer patients the possibility of making use of an organised, dynamic and quality care network because it is carried out by competent and qualified personnel. The nursing services in agreement with the NHS would be combined with the traditional channels of integrated home care, which do not always support the requests of all patients, with the consequence of increasing the black economy of undeclared services, which Censis has quantified at around 800 million euros per year”, concludes the President.