How are nurses in Portugal? 2022 reality
A survey of 8,000 nurses was revealed in early May, at the meeting “All for Health”, which took place in Braga. In this study, health professionals were thought out and paid exhaustion. In fact, most nurses in the National Health Service provide low-cost care services to the successive lack of materials and professionals in health units, especially in hospitals. The vast majority even claim to feel, many times, in “ethical suffering”. This is what is stated in the survey carried out by Universidade Nova, Instituto Superior Técnico and the Observatory for Living and Working Conditions.
According to Jornal Expresso, 85% of nurses do everything they can with the awareness that, even so, it is not enough. Likewise, 84% configure the options that are not considered, of treatment, in which they are not considered. “Nurses go against what they know is right or act at risk. For example, the patient sometimes thinks, knows that he will have wounds, or thinks it alone, there is no other colleague to help”, explained Raquel Varela, coordinator of the study. This reality is mirrored in the 55% of study participants who confessed to having acted against codes of ethics and standards of conduct, due to material constraints or institution guidelines.
For this reason and for better working conditions, as a reward and little rest, almost two of the nurses can now change their profession. The National and Work Study of Nurses in Portugal as the last two years and the level of various corresponding aspects, such as the wear and tear of these professionals, the “exhaustion”, moral and ordered harassment. “More than 60% of nurses are already thinking about leaving the profession because they are completely demoralized by their working conditions”, completed Raquel Varela in statements to LUSA.
Do nurses choose to stay in Portugal?
This is one of the great problems of the moment, according to the chairman Ana Rita Cavaco. For her, Portugal does not have a problem with training, but with hiring. The base of the Bar Association believes that nurses will continue to emigrate if they do not have incentives, such as valuing their careers, lowering the retirement age and considering the quality of the profession.
Present in Braga for the Congress of Nurses, Ana Rita Cavaco noted that Portugal cannot compete for countries. “Other countries pay for the specialty and in Portugal there is still no way, although we insist that for years, negotiating with the internship of the specialty, the nurses and the specialized doctors”, he criticized.
For the chairwoman, it doesn’t “no sense” There is no special internship, when there is evidence that special care reduces readmission rates and the number of days spent in hospital, which would save around 65 million euros per year. This is an increasingly important reality when we look at the increase in the aging rate of the Portuguese population and the weight it places on the SNS. According to Ana Rita Cavaco, it is necessary to provide the older population with care, privileginga number of services that support them at home, before institutionalizing them”.
People with acute illnesses that lead to hospitalization may need 24-hour nursing care and “certainly it is not homes or, at least, homes with the typology that worries us today, that will respond to these people. This is because they have a very large limitation on the number of nursing hours and a number of nurses per residents who do not serve as, in fact, has now become apparent in the pandemic. It’s not just feeding the person, bathing them, dressing them. People with other health needs, have chronic characteristics and their diseases”.
International Nursing Day celebrates every year of nursing on May 12 and aims to honor all nurses in the world and remember the importance of professionals in providing health care to the general population.