With 6.5 nurses per 1,000 inhabitants, Italy is well below the European Union average of 8.4. Even more significant is the ratio between doctors and nurses: only 1.3 nurses per doctor, compared to values between 2.6 and 2.9 in countries such as France, Germany and the United Kingdom. The nursing profession struggles to attract young people just when the system needs them most: low salaries, exhausting shifts, great responsibilities, few protections discourage most people, or cause them to emigrate abroad once they have obtained their degree.
. Especially in a region like the Lombardythe most populous, the one with the greatest number of excellent hospitals, but also where, words pronounced on 4 June by the Health Councilor Gianluca Bertolaso, «2,500 to 3,000 nurses are missing.” But fortunately there are exceptions, so exemplary that they deserve to be told
Hena is 19 years old and yes he is preparing for the final exam at the Marconi Linguistic High School in Milan. She was born in Sarajevo, but at the age of seven she moved to Milan with her parents and younger sister. Until a few months ago he felt just like those expatriates who did not choose to leave and are unable to fully integrate into their homeland. She was convinced that that discomfort, that restlessness accentuated by adolescence, could only find peace by returning to live in Sarajevo. Then something unexpected happened that changed things, changed her and gave her an answer to that question of meaning that more and more young people ask themselves and struggle to find, often experiencing discomfort that leads to reckless or self-harming actions.
Hena became a volunteer ambulance rescuer and from there she oriented her future plan towards a healthcare profession. She will be testing for nursing school in September.
«I live near the San Carlo hospital and I often see ambulances whizzing by. I was struck by the writing on one of them, Intervol onlus, and I searched on Google what it was about. But I didn’t go any further: I didn’t feel up to applying as a volunteer.”
But destiny, as we know, always finds ways to reach its goal. «A few days later, some volunteers from Intervol came to school to raise awareness among young people who were just eighteen years old about volunteering in the ambulance. At that point I took courage and applied.”
Before entering actual service, all volunteers follow a 46-hour course, to which others can then be added to advance in level. «For now, with high school graduation just around the corner, I haven’t been able to do any more and I’m very sorry about this, because what began just as an attempt to shake up my life has become what I feel is a mission: helping others, strangers, those in need. I understood that I have to say thank you to life, that I have a home, a family, health, while my mother lived her entire adolescence in a besieged city. I feel that I must repay my fortune by doing something for those who suffer, for those who are alone, sick, lost…”.
Volunteers must ensure a weekly shift; Hena, due to school, chose the Saturday one from 12.30. But because there are fewer regularly hired staff on weekends, volunteers are often called to a second shift on Sundays. They cannot use drugs, but can perform first aid measures
«There is an operations center that collects calls, tries to make an initial filter on the seriousness of the situation and evaluates whether to have the ambulance followed by a medical car. They call us for the most diverse reasons: domestic accidents, family violence or street fights, suspected heart attacks or even for a simple stomach ache. In this case I realize that the lack of a basic medical service leads to taking advantage of another service which, however, should be reserved for real emergencies or for transport to care for the elderly or non-self-sufficient people.
As an ambulance volunteer, dramatic scenes can happen to you, or leaving a person with a red code in the emergency room and not knowing if they will make it. “But one of the experiences that shook me the most was the crisis of a young man suffering from a psychiatric disorder who had stopped treatment and wanted to harm himself.”
Initially Hena was orienting herself towards the test for the psychology faculty. But it was by visiting hospitals that he changed his mind.
«Maybe due to fatigue, perhaps due to habit or stress, but I see that healthcare personnel often treat patients roughly, minimizing their suffering, when they need to be reassured. I don’t like this attitude. I wish that, in a job like this, motivation and attention to others would never fail. I don’t want to think of myself as indifferent to their pain, because I would end up no longer holding their hand with love and understanding. I have to suffer a little with them. And so, as a reaction, I decided that I would be a nurse, but in a different way, with more humanity. The fact that I don’t have a great preparation in scientific subjects scares me just a little, but after graduating from high school I will start studying seriously for the test.”
Compared to Medicine, There are fewer and fewer young people who want to become nurses, in the face of constant growth in demand. A less prestigious and less paid profession, but equally tiring and of great responsibility. Thus, even those who graduate in Nursing Sciences in many cases then go to work abroad, where the salaries are decidedly higher (three times those in Italy in neighboring Switzerland) and the working conditions are less stressful.
«At the moment my idea is to stay. I have finally made peace with Italy and I would like to continue living and working here, putting the salary into the background. And at the moment I would like what I do on a voluntary basis to become a job, while still remaining a mission. So a nurse, but in a medical vehicle.”
Hena is also a beautiful girl, very well-groomed and attentive to her physical appearance, and yet It’s in the orange uniform of a volunteer that she feels most like herself. «Giving life, helping others gives me life, and this is where I find my happiness. And then with the ambulance volunteers I built a second family”
