toNursing is a profession that is always looking forward and seeking how to “reinvent” itself to provide the best care and attention to people. We are fully aware of the importance of training and skills development that we have witnessed over recent years. Our vision … Public service leads us every day to explore how we can develop our full potential to achieve healthier communities and a more sustainable health system.
That’s why we celebrate International Nurses Day this year by focusing, not on what we already are, as a major healthcare group within our healthcare system, but on what we can become.
We are already professionals doing our own and independent work in health centers and in other areas of work, leading different interventions aimed at prevention and generating health.
Our work makes a difference to people’s health, pushing and motivating us to apply all the knowledge and skills acquired after four years of university studies and up to six years to develop our skills as specialist nurses.
We are a professional group known and valued by citizens, but it is also true that it is not always for the right reasons. The wrong and stereotypical perception still exists that we only accompany and care with sympathy and affection.
It is also believed that our activity is limited to health care and dependent on what other health care professionals do. It is not known, for example, that we research, train and educate in the field of health and manage and lead teams and projects.
We continue to face a clear lack of institutional recognition and deliberate attempts at professional interference to pursue economic interests or political and commercial opportunities.
Today, we defend our area of competence and demand professional respect. We want to be able to develop all our skills without limits out of the conviction that if we progress, society will also progress.
We are part of multidisciplinary teams, where we must have representation, we are here to contribute to improving the health of our community, and to participate in decision-making.
We also need positive work environments where we are heard and where the necessary human and material resources are available to do our work safely and efficiently. We demand a law of lineage that guarantees the safety of patients. With attractive working conditions, allowing us access to Group A1, voluntary early retirement, and application of contribution reduction coefficients, we will be able to enhance the motivation of professionals.
There is a general consensus that the increase in chronic disease, multimorbidity and dependency represents the major challenge to be faced in the coming years and it should also be clear that they are essential areas of care in which we nurses must lead.
Nursing should have greater decision-making power, not only regarding our profession, but also in policies and strategies that affect the health system and society as a whole.
In short, we will be able to provide better attention and care if we work in jobs appropriate to our specific knowledge and skills and if we also have more spaces and areas of work.
Today we can see with satisfaction all that has been achieved thanks to the joint efforts of our profession, but we do so without any hint of surrender and steadfast in our demands to continue “making a difference” in people’s health.
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