[ad_1]
“I am a doctor registered in the Order, for three years I have been working in the emergency-urgency in Veneto. Every day I take Covid patients to the emergency room, but there I have to stop: unfortunately, I cannot work directly for the State ”. Mameli Arts, a 28-year-old Albanian doctor, is coordinator of young doctors of theAssociation of doctors of foreign origin in Italy (Amsi). She is also part of a great “white army”. of doctors and nurses that remain outside the wards, even if second wave gusts hit the glass doors of hospitals, and all regions complain of their desperate lack. “We actually work on it, but always staying on the sidelines, through cooperatives or privately, always with VAT. And like me, thousands of other doctors ”.
And here is the paradox: from the beginning of the emergency, the Regions have complained about the lack of health personnel, but they do nothing to use the foreigner they already have. Instead of using it, they look for it Foreign. They speak Italian, they are registered in their respective professional records and they are doctors and nurses in their own right. Are they less capable than the Italians? Are they less willing? Do they have C series titles and ratings? None of this, the exclusion of foreign doctors is due to a piece of paper: the requirement of citizenship Italian. “It is surreal but it is – reports Artes -. Regions and Ats systematically exclude foreign professionals, even though the government has ordered a humiliation from the first wave. The truth? In Italy, unfortunately, bureaucracy and discrimination continue to dictate the law ”.
Our country thus discovers, in the most dramatic season since its post-war period, the price of the xenophobic elections of the last 20 years and the lack of immigration and integration qualified. Myopia, bureaucracy and harm they are preventing even today, with hospitals on the verge of collapse, from recruiting from the public a workforce that would be ready to enter the ward. To close the door in his face are the ASL administrations and hospitals that feel the lack. They are the ones who announce contests with the requirement to hatch of Italian or European citizenship and they do it too against the law, because the Care Italy he had opened the doors of the National Health Service to foreign professionals.
L ‘article 13 of the March decree allows the temporary hiring – until the end of the emergency – of health personnel not belong to the European Union, as long as he is the holder of a residence permit that “allows him to work, without prejudice to any other limit”. However, from the regions and their territorial health emanations rubber wall. It occurs where reinforcements would be needed: in Bergamo, Civitavecchia, Matera (the tender is still ongoing), in Umbria. Even in the case of Piedmont, which, with 10 calls all for doctors with Italian citizenship, prompted three medical associations to publicly denounce the breach of the law. Among these, Amsi, whose president is the Palestinian physiatrist Foad Aodi, since 2002 counselor of the Order of Doctors of Rome. “We are experiencing a black page. The foreign doctors in Italy who could help their colleagues are an army of invisible people who only find space in the private sector or on the margins of the system. It has always happened, but what happens while people are dying is unacceptable ”. Also because abroad, Berlin and Paris in the lead, we are working in the opposite direction.
The numbers
In the national territory they are 77,500including 22 thousand doctors and 38 thousand nurses. Among the doctors, only 5 thousand they also work in the public 15 thousand are hired privately (and, in clinics, often poorly paid) and over 2000 they work as freelancers. Almost the 60% of them, therefore, work outside of public health. This is the photograph, this is the problem. “In April, the government approved an exemption that would have allowed the hiring of foreign doctors, but it remained on paper. Regions do what they want, most do interpreted at will. Veneto, for example, preferred to search for sanitary ware in Romania rather than use them on its soil. And it’s still not enough, because you’re looking for 1300. Even Piedmont has. And we have rightly denounced it ”.
The Piedmont case, the opposite case of Emilia Romagna
The region of Cirio is emblematic. Friday he stayed with 10 intensive care places in their departments. On Monday, in response, he announced a “task force” to increase them. But at the same time admits the lack of personnel to activate them, and opens the possibility of employing resuscitation students. However, it is the same as a ruling excluded all doctors from outside the EU, even if they have a good reputation and pay taxes and practice the medical profession. “It is frankly unacceptable, but it must be resolved once and for all by eliminating discrimination.” That behind the exclusion there are no insurmountable reasons is shown by the opposite case of Emilia Romagna. From the beginning, the Bonaccini region has relied on the contribution of foreign doctors. The day after the repeal included in Cura Italia, ad hoc calls for hiring were issued: Expression of interest in the temporary exercise of the healthcare profession obtained abroad and regulated by specific directives of the European Union (in application of article 13 of the Decree-Law of March 17, 2020 n.18).
The proposal: “Citizenship after 5 years”
The association had advanced a proposal. “Foreign doctors can make a difference in the Covid emergency. To allow for their input, we ask who has a work experience of at least 5 years in Italy be admitted to public competitions – says President Amsi – and that, after approving it, he can start his path to citizenship. It is a solution that does not meet hostility from Italian colleagues because we are all aligned in the need to protect the qualifications of doctors regardless of their origin or skin color. There is no competition to the bottom, there is no competition between doctors. We are all aligned in paying them more and even Italians agree to treat foreigners not as second-class doctors, who are used to plugging holes in normal times, even ignored in emergencies more than recognized. There is only one thing that distances us and that is discriminatory politics. The Italians themselves say “enough”.
Germany and France, citizenship by merits of service
This is exactly what our neighbors in the Alps, Germany and France in the lead, are doing. Just today, the French government announced its intention to accelerate the “naturalization of foreigners at the forefront who have made a fundamental contribution to the emergency. “Doctors and nurses but not only, including garbage collectors, cashiers. The Interior Minister anticipates a formulary for the prefectures. Germany is also calling on migrant doctors to help combat the coronavirus. Saxony, where the data is the strongest, has opened the debate by launching a campaign inviting foreign doctors, starting with the thousands of Syrian refugees who have arrived since 2015, to come forward. “Anyone who can help to get in touch, “says the motto of the Leipzig Medical Association.
[ad_2]
