Nurses’ Day, Fnopi: “Without there is no health, we are the backbone of the NHS”

There International Nurses Day coincides this year with the Mother’s Day: nurses are 76% women and over 270,000 are mothers who have to reconcile this demanding profession with family duties (over half have two or more children). “We are the backbone of the National Health Service, but we are witnessing a particularly critical moment, made up of important shortcomings, a decrease in interest on the part of young people in choosing this profession, an evaluation by those who are already ‘migrate’ to other structures in some European and North American countries”. This was said by Barbara Mangiacavalli, president of the National Federation of Orders of Nursing Professions (Fnopi), on the eve of the anniversary of May 12, the day of the birth of Florence Nightingale, mother of modern nursing.

“Let’s nourish health” is the slogan chosen by Fnopi for the 2024 edition: “We wanted to take this opportunity – explains Mangiacavalli – to return to the origin of the etymological root of the Anglo-Saxon term Nurse which derives from the Latin Nutrix and refers to the concept of nutrition, of taking care of those in need. This is what the nurse does in her daily activity.”

“On this important day – underlines the president of Fnopi – we need to recall the institutions and politics on the issue of the nursing shortage, because it is no longer a problem of our profession, but of the whole country, it is a problem of all citizens because without nurses there is no future, without nurses there is no health, there is no assistance for an increasingly elderly, fragile and lonely population”. It is therefore “necessary to relaunch policies to enhance the profession both in training courses and in career and contractual. Therefore, have the courage to innovate healthcare models so that our citizens can always benefit from this essential component which, together with all the other healthcare professions, has ensured that our NHS is among the first in the world and our country enjoys the high rate of longevity”, he concludes.