World Nurse Day: this is why it must be celebrated
World Nurses Day is celebrated today, 12 May 2020. A special occasion, not only for the historical moment that we are living in, but also because, in this same year, we celebrate the bicentenary of the birth of Florence Nightingale, the one who laid the foundations of modern nursing. In this regard, the National Federation of Orders of Nursing Professions (FNOPI) relaunches the #NoiConGliInfermieri campaign to raise funds to be donated to professionals affected by the virus. (here it is possible to donate)
The symbolic faces of the fight against the Coronavirus
A day to further reiterate our gratitude towards this often devalued but indispensable category, as we were able to ascertain - further - during the current Coronavirus emergency.
Their faces have become the symbol of this struggle. Distorted faces, marked by the prolonged use of protective devices and exhausting shifts. The faces of those who, often in silence, are lined up in the front line in the face of need and dangers, never backing down.
Since the spread of the virus, in Italy 12,000 nurses have been infected and 39 have died, including 4 suicides. All tried by the enormous pressure to which they have been subjected, often forced to work without adequate protection and at an unsustainable pace, where the word 'stop' is only a utopia. But they do it because this profession is not a simple job, for them, it is something more: it is a real vocation. A life choice that they would make again and again, because dedication to others, the basic principle of nurses, is an instinct that cannot be denied.
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Concrete action is needed
But nice words are not enough. Concrete actions are needed to protect nurses and enhance the work they do every day in first person between hospital wards and patient rooms. Support, safety, protection, recognition, these are the key words to improve the conditions in which those we love to call “heroes” work, but who are primarily people to be protected.
And if these attentions must be reserved for them every day, today is another opportunity to do so because, as claimed by the director general of the World Health Organization (WHO), Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, "nurses are the backbone of any system sanitary ".
