In a world marked by recurring health crises, the aging of the population and a growing demand for care, especially complex, the work of nurses has become more indispensable than ever.
However, despite their fundamental role in the health system, investment in nurses is insufficient and their labor and professional problems are not being addressed. On the contrary, they are silenced and hidden, which puts in check the present and future health system.
This situation is causing a deep discomfort in the profession that favors the abandonment of nursing, hinders the loyalty of professionals and calls into question the sustainability of the health system itself. Without safer, attractive, fair and equitable work environments, it is impossible to provide high quality care, which has an impact on all the parameters of efficiency and efficiency of the health system.
On International Nursing Day, as every day in the work centers, we ask to be respected, that our professional authority is recognized, eradicate the hierarchical and paternalistic treatment, and guarantee that the nurse voice has weight in health management, thus slowing the institutional violence that falls on the profession, work harassment and undercover contempt under the excuse of vocation.
The first challenge is to resolve the lack of professionals that affects our National Health System (SNS), estimated by the Ministry of Health in 100,000 nurses. This figure only hides a labor overexploitation that not only compromises the physical and mental health of nurses, but the safety of patients and the quality of care.
You have to stop romantizing wear and overload as if they were synonyms for commitment. Our country has the opportunity to join the line opened by other countries and establish a maximum ratio of patients by nurse, since it has a proposition of the ratios law, developed by Satse, pending approval in the Congress of Deputies.
These ratios save many lives, put limits, and generate equity in the dispensation of care among the different health services, which do not have the same health financing. Because the lack of personnel increases errors, reduces the quality of assistance and increases avoidable mortality. On the contrary, multiple studies have shown that a smaller number of patients by nurse reduces complications, shorten hospital stays and significantly improves clinical results. Because let’s not forget that nurses are in the first line of care. They are the ones who spend more time with patients, guarantee care continuity, who detect critical changes in the state of health, manage treatments and offer the emotional support that many times marks the turning point between recovery and deterioration. They also prevent the disease and are committed to health education and the promotion of self -care.
Not investing in nurses is to condemn the health system to a perpetual crisis and drag our society to a permanent loss of quality of life, and there is our greatest fear, because it is not just living more years, but about living them with quality, dignity and care.
And in the other face of the currency, the lack of professionals only leads us day after day to exhausting days and unstable contracts, without breaks, without the minimum guarantees. It forces us to give up our family and personal life.
Our work is essential, yes, but we cannot continue to support the SNS without support, without time and without rest; We did it during the pandemic, but this cannot be maintained. We do not want to choose between being committed professionals and people with our own.
Investing strategically in nurses, in their working and professional conditions, it is not only a matter of labor justice, but also a strategic decision to improve the health of the entire population, the construction of healthier societies and generations more involved in the self -care of their health.
Nursing expenditure should not be seen in any case as a cost, but as an investment with high return. It constitutes an efficiency lever for the SNS, because we not only plan, intervene and evaluate our care, but also effectively manage; We promote health; We reduce costs and optimize resources, coordinating multidisciplinary attention and avoiding duplication.
Governments, health institutions and society as a whole must understand that taking care of those who care for is an urgent priority, because when nurses are recognized, valued and protected, and are invested in the profession, we all win.