“Recruiting overseas health workers does not solve the problem”: doctors and nurses against the Department

“We will consider finding doctors in other countries, including India”, announced the regional health advisor, Federico Riboldi, a few days ago. “In Italy there is a shortage of 60 thousand nurses – replacement launched the minister Orazio Schillaci during the G7 Health Ministers in Ancona -. We recruit them abroad, especially from India, but they have to learn Italian and receive language training through online platforms.”

As in the time of Covid

Secrets of Piedmont – where the only real experience in this sense dates back to 2020, when Cuban healthcare workers from the Henry Reeve Brigade arrived to support the Covid Hospital established in the Turin OGR in the center of the pandemic. – they cause debate. The crisis has moved, from the viral storm to the shortage of health care workers now in hospitals and in the region, unacceptable yesterday for the Turin Medical Association and today’s nurses’ unions. Complaints already appeared when Luigi Icardi, Riboldi’s predecessor at the head of the Health Department, in March 2023, tried to hire doctors from Croatia and Albania.but without success.

Training and bureaucracy issues

«The basic problem is that doctors, whether Indian or from other countries – specifies Dr. Guido Giustetto, president of the Medical Association of Turin and its province -: one preparation comparable to that of our graduates and knowledge, at least basic, of our language and code of ethical conduct. The practice has always been that the doctor who comes from a foreign country must get the certificate of qualification for the position received by the Ministry of Health abroad so that he can then register with the Order of the great department where it works, where there is knowledge of language and ethics.” The truth, adds Giustetto, is that several orders have followed each other which, until the end of 2025, allows authorities local health and private health care facilities or to hire foreign health care professionals and have their activities approved by a regional agency. The Department must then send the list of these operators to the Orders, without have to register”.

Ed Here are the issues: «The Department evaluates the quality of the training of these colleagues. And with the criteria? Those of the Ministry? Registration with the Order, which is no longer required, included a test of understanding of the Italian language and knowledge of our ethical principleswhich are not the same in the cultures of each country: from the duty of informed consent to total respect for the patient’s self-determination in the options to be treated or not, to careless treatment. Do we take these skills for granted? Again: “Our Order has a disciplinary function towards its members. If one of these colleagues, who is not a member, commits a crime, can he be judged and, if necessary, sanctioned?”.

Even the nurses were confused

doubts and the opposition that extends from doctors to nursesthe. “The intention to deal with the shortage of nursing staff is commendable but the solution is not adequate – Claudio Delli Carri and Francesco Coppolella hold back in union for the Nursing and Nursing unions -. Instead of looking for temporary solutions, to prevent more and more young Italian nurses from looking for work opportunities abroad, it is it is essential to invest in training and attraction».