A large group of Health Assistants in recent days he sent a letter addressed to the councilor Ruggero Razza, to the director of DASOE Letizia Di Liberti and to the commissioners for the covid emergency Renato Costa and Giuseppe Liberti. A copy of the letter was also sent for information to a long list of institutional subjects. Subject: The profession of Health Assistant in the territorial activities of prevention and public health.
In the text, signed by 22 health assistants, the professionals complain that they have been practically ignored by the regional institutions to cope with the covid emergency. “We are dismayed by the finding – reads the letter – that our role has not been contemplated in public notices relating to the recruitment of personnel as part of the activities related to the Covid emergency (the last of which was announced on 13/10/2020).
Exactly the same grievances manifested a few days ago by Biomedical Laboratory Health Technicians (read here). Below is the full text of the letter from the 22 health assistants.
Precious,
we are a large group of newly graduated Health Assistants from the University of Palermo and students of the same University, we would like to bring to your kind attention the peculiarities of our profession.
Our training is oriented to the health needs of the area. “The Health Assistant is the graduate health worker who has the powers provided for by the Ministerial Decree of the Ministry of Health January 17, 1997, n. 69 and subsequent amendments and additions; that is, it is the person in charge of prevention, promotion and health education aimed at the person, the family and the population “.
We are therefore dismayed by the finding that our role has not been contemplated in the public notices relating to the recruitment of personnel in the context of activities related to the Covid emergency (the last of which was banned on 13/10/2020). Yet among the specific skills recognized to us and for which we have been specially trained are also contemplated:
– carrying out the epidemiological investigation following notification of an infectious disease;
– contact surveillance to contain the spread of the disease;
– communication of the infectious risk through specific counseling techniques;
– active search for contacts (family members, secondary cases, working environments …);
– health surveillance of contacts and health workers;
– training and information to the network of contacts (methods of transmission, precautions and conscious choices, methods of reporting signs and symptoms of the infection, needs analysis, active listening);
– execution of nasopharyngeal swabs and promotion of screening tests;
– biological monitoring techniques applied to infectious diseases;
– network activities in carrying out the emergency plan (Medical Department, PS, GP, PLS, analysis laboratory, Mayors);
– participation in the construction of information material for the population;
These technical skills, peculiar and exclusive to our professional profile, are often attributed to other professional figures with alternative and / or inappropriate training.
Our specific training comes from the Degree Course in Health Care, Degree Class L-SNT / 4 “Class of degrees in Health Professions of Prevention”, established at the University of Palermo since 2014.
It is bitter to be forced to leave one’s homeland to spend one’s competence and professionalism elsewhere where, on the contrary, our profile is highly sought after and profitably employed.
We hope that you will accept our appeal with a view to a fruitful collaboration in this emergency period we are experiencing.
Cordially
–
