It took a pandemic for society to realize the value nurses add to community health. These years were crucial to the way nursing appeared in public. And for the first time, we’ve seen nurses care for ventilated patients, use technology to bring patients closer to their families, and drive and manage testing and vaccination operations.
In a more shy, but also present manner, Nursing is beginning to gain a voice. Still far from ideal, we see colleagues specifically calling for better working conditions, safe personal protective equipment and tools, in order to provide the best care to citizens.
The nurses knew how to put the country’s interests first. During the pandemic, despite the policy of low wages, suppression of ratings and progress, or increased instability in class, just to mention some of the work problems that plague us, there was a consensus that union struggles would have to wait. There were no nursing strikes during the pandemic, nor were they for the Champions League final. It was because of the class’s sense of mission and duty.
Nursing is the largest professional group in the field of health. Nurses are those who care for the citizen 24 hours a day and are present throughout the life cycle, in health promotion, disease prevention, acute care, recovery, rehabilitation, and palliative care. Nurses are the determinants of access to health care, and they should assume themselves as such. It is unimaginable to constantly move away from places of thinking, planning and decision-making in the field of health. We cannot continue on this path. We need a vision focused on the social and cultural growth of the profession, which is only possible if it is a truly collegial vision. Due to their quality, nurses trained in Portugal are highly regarded throughout Europe. Why are they not inside?
The population is the least enjoying our full potential. There is no concern, by any of the relevant actors in the field of health, to maximize the enormous contribution that nursing can make to society. whether they are linked to institutional relations, to political fears of fostering change, or, no less seriously, to a notion of a profession that reduces it to mere mechanical work.
Every day, there are thousands of interventions and actions that are performed and informally prescribed by nurses. However, they do not leave the realm of the informal attribute, leaving the formal law reserved for other professionals. This does obvious harm to the profession, as autonomy is conditional and accountability withdrawn. We must look forward to a completely different division of the structure of responsibilities. Similar to what happens in many other OECD countries, where nurses are responsible for observing and evaluating healthy people, monitoring non-acute chronic patients, or even first approach in acute illness. There is no decrease in the quality of care provided to the population. on the contrary! Access to welfare increases when the system focuses on caring for the citizen rather than waging corporate wars.
The big change in nursing, which has been postponed for a long time, is the development to an integrated master’s degree in nursing science. The remaining health professions begin their careers with a master’s degree, with clear and obvious advantages for their professionals. Lacking vision and ambition, we are left behind, in an increasingly restricted and isolated group. We don’t have any more time to waste. The thirst for change is great and we cannot afford to sit idly by. A master’s degree should be a short-term reality.
The Order, as the body that regulates the profession and guarantees the highest standard of care, provides an essential service. He must develop and maintain a relationship of trust with the community, so that his actions and interventions are respected. But while ensuring excellence in care, it can reflect how it manages to impact a healthy ecosystem. Most of the positive outcomes obtained in terms of quality of health are the responsibility of nurses’ assessments and interventions. However, hospital funding is mainly the result of medical production. This reality must change! The system is uneven. We can strengthen nursing homes and improve the quality of care for the population.
Because we believe that our focus should be on the growth of the profession, the union of professionals and response to health needs, a group of 850 male and female nurses, from all regions, of different ages and specialties, from the public, private and social sectors, in all types of functions, from teaching to strategic and operational management , including, of course, practice, showing a strong desire for change and growth. We invite all colleagues to reflect with us on the evolution of the profession and the path we want to take together. Health needs nursing, and we say: present!
The author writes according to the new spelling convention
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