The demarcation of Tarragona needs 4,000 more nurses to approach European ratios and guarantee care quality and safety, according to the Official College of Nurses of Tarragona and Satse of Catalonia. Both organizations have taken advantage of International Nurses Day this Tuesday to demand more weight for the collective in decision-making, job stability, and professional reclassification.
The protest places a contradiction at the center of the health debate. While entities maintain that reinforcing nurses improves care and reduces mortality, the collective denounces that it remains key to the system but with little presence in management positions, without recognition of most specialties and with staff subjected to overload.
Gerard Mora estimates 4,000 nurses are missing in Tarragona
Before the Joan XXIII Hospital, Satse de Catalunya has read a manifesto in which it has denounced the situation of the collective. The text maintains that the profession has been essential for the functioning of the health system, but invisible when it comes to making decisions.
"Our profession has been essential for too long to the functioning of the healthcare system, but invisible when it comes to decision-making" - Satse de Catalunya, manifesto read before the Joan XXIII Hospital
The same manifesto adds that nurses have been offered precariousness, subordination, and lack of recognition. It also denounces that they are often considered an economic resource to cover system deficiencies, with effects on citizen care.
Gerard Mora, secretary of the Official College of Nurses of Tarragona, has linked the strengthening of the profession with concrete care results. He has pointed out that a 10% increase in nurses in hospitals can reduce mortality by 7%, according to a study cited by the college.
Mora has also warned that in the next 10 years, about 200 nursing professionals will retire in the district. To that pending replacement is added the current staff deficit, which the college estimates at 4,000 professionals to comply with European standards.
Only 3% hold management positions and Tarragona loses professionals trained here
The college and the union have called for strengthening the leadership of nurses and increasing their presence in positions of responsibility. Mora has specified that only 3% of nurses in the district are in management positions.
The lack of professional recognition also affects the continuity of staff. In Catalonia, nursing specialties are not recognized, except for midwives, and that situation pushes many professionals trained at the nursing faculty of Tarragona to leave for other provinces.
Codita has also shown her concern about the disappearance of nursing departments in some centers. Among the cases cited is the Hospital Comarcal d'Amposta, where these positions have been eliminated.
Along with the lack of personnel, organizations have denounced insufficient ratios, exhausted staff, chronic overload recognized by international bodies, and an increase in aggressions against healthcare personnel with prevention measures they consider insufficient.
Gerard Mora maintains that strengthening the role of nurses could prevent the loss of 189 million years of life due to premature death.