Doctors without a contract: it's a general strike
24-hour stop of white coats, veterinarians and managers, sit-ins throughout Italy. Filippi (Fp): “Renewal expected for ten years, dwindling resources, insufficient staff, unsustainable shifts. This is how the National Health Service is dismantled”
More resources for the National Health Fund and to guarantee the right to treatment, as well as the renewal of a contract that has been on the sidelines for over ten years now. These are the main requests of Italian doctors, veterinarians and health managers, who today (Friday 23 November) stop for a 24-hour national strike. But the cahier de doléances is long: the terrible working conditions, the increasingly unsustainable shifts (and all the more so for a progressively aging staff), the inadequate staffing (dating back as far as 1999), the lack of career prospects for hospital doctors. The list of medical inter-union organizations adhering to the stoppage is long: Fp Cgil doctors, Aaroi-Emac, Anaao Assomed, Cimo, Fvm, Fassid, Cisl doctors, Fesmed, Anpo-Ascoti-Fials doctors, Uil Fpl.
”Twenty years of defunding the NHS led to this, then add the smear campaign against doctors. The government of change on the one hand provides assistance with the citizen's income, on the other it cuts services. I believe that there is a will to float the NHS to allow the field to be left free for the private sector ”. As Andrea Filippi, national secretary Fp Cgil doctors, in his speech at the trade union press conference underway in Rome, at the training center of the San Camillo Forlanini hospital.
In recent days Filippi had underlined the main reasons for the strike: "A contract that has been on hold for ten years, dwindling resources, an elderly and insufficient workforce". The secretary then also remarked that "the average age of medical personnel is now over 53 and approximately 10,000 new retirements are expected over the next two years, destined to increase as a result of the announced introduction of the 100 quota". An unease that adds up to the vast pockets of precariousness present in the category: “10 percent of management personnel are still precarious, most of them are subject to atypical contracts. And 2,200 specialization scholarships are missing”.
Added to this are the inadequate resources of the National Health Fund. "Government and Regions continue to quarrel to determine who should provide the resources, while funds for management personnel have been depleted by around one billion euros", continued Filippi. The secretary of the Fp CGIL Medici highlighted “that the 'government of change' continues to definance the public health service to the detriment of citizens and to the benefit of the private sector. The work of professionals who have guaranteed the right to health for years is humiliated by unacceptable working conditions and mortifying economic wages compared to those of the private sector and in other European countries. It is time for an incisive intervention”.
"We denounce the dismantling of the National Health Service and the consequent inequalities, which have been going on for over ten years thanks to the previous governments, which the executive in office does not seem to want to remedy", writes the medical interunion in a joint statement. The trade unions report "the worsening of working conditions in healthcare facilities, which puts the safety of care at risk", as well as the absence of "the employment contract for ten years, with serious organisational, economic and social security damage". Finally, the inter-union also notes "the lack of recruitment necessary to cope with the exodus in progress" and "the uncertainty of the future of young people left out of post-graduate training".
Andrea Filippi highlights that "recruitments, specializations and contracts are the nodes that risk putting the National Health Service in crisis and that are not addressed, if not minimally, by the maneuver". The secretary of the Fp CGIL Medici points out that "in 2019, only 1.14 billion and 4 and a half billion will reach health care in three years: this is nothing more than what was already foreseen by the previous budget law of the Gentiloni government, and nothing comparable to what is needed". Lastly, Filippi highlights the issue of specialization scholarships: “Only 900 are foreseen for four years, for a cost of 20 million euros a year, practically they are crumbs. On the other hand, it is known that at least 2,500 specialization scholarships would be needed compared to the needs throughout the national territory. We are talking about a figure of 100 million, which is essential to avoid the desertification of the departments. In fact, health care and those who work in it continue to drown.
National strike November 23……THANK YOU!
THANK YOU to all the colleagues who supported the reasons for the protest with their extraordinary participation in today's strike. For public health and for the dignity of our work.
Charles Palermo
National Secretary Anaao Assomed
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Rings, Fnomceo: "Good convening of trade unions by the Minister, concrete demonstration of attention and sensitivity"
The first data on joining the strike, which speak of semi-deserted wards and the participation of 80-90%, indicate that the doctors are discouraged, fed up with inhuman working conditions and disappointed by the lack of recognition, but maintain the desire to react and the sense of attachment to our National Health Service”.
Thus the President of the National Federation of Orders of Surgeons and Dentists, Filippo Rings, comments on the data provided this morning at the press conference by the Medical Unions.
"Although the private sector is increasingly attractive, in fact, doctors want to remain in the public sector - continues -. They want to stay because they share the values of equity, universalism, solidarity, to support it and to prevent its dismantling".
"We warmly welcome the news that the Minister of Health Giulia Grillo has summoned the trade unions to hear their reasons, as we too had asked in recent days in order to avert the strike - concludes Rings-. This gesture concretely demonstrates that attention and sensitivity towards the Doctors that already leaked out in the words of support that arrived yesterday evening with his interview with Quotidiano Sanità. It is now necessary to bring the Government and the Regions together and start a negotiation that will finally unlock the renewal of the contracts".
