The attempt to cool things off that took place today at the table of the prefect of Cagliari between the Nursing Up Sardegna union and the general management of the Health department ended with a negative outcome. Next week the trade union will gather its executives to plan the next actions, including a strike. "The time for promises is over," warns Diego Murracino, regional manager of Nursing Up, " the working conditions of healthcare professionals, nurses, midwives and other workers in service in Sardinia's hospitals violate professional dignity, not allowing the exercise of adequate care for patients due to the insufficient number of staff on shift ."
"Working under overload conditions," Murracino continues, "exponentially increases the risk of errors that are detrimental to the health of patients for which the health professionals themselves must personally answer for compensation. The continuous changes in shift patterns make it impossible to plan life outside of work, with negative repercussions on the quality of life." The acronym also points out that " the salaries offered by the regional health service in Sardinia are the lowest in Italy, far from the salaries adequate for university education and the resulting responsibilities ."
"What has been described," Murracino emphasizes, "daily damages the professional dignity and health of workers, objectively leading to a poor general quality of life, so much so as to induce part of the staff to resign to go private or permanently leave the health professions." For Nursing Up, "today's meeting with the management of the Health Department did not go beyond the factual observation of the dramatic situation in which Sardinia's hospitals find themselves. In the absence of a specific strategic plan from the Region, aimed at addressing the nursing emergency to give dignity to the health professions and improve wages, the meeting in the Prefecture ended with a negative outcome ."