We all know there are professional careers that implies more physical and intellectual activities tan others, likewise, analytical and mental work.
To pursue a career that requires and demands dedication and effort such as physical as mental, definitively, it is not easy work. I refer particularly, to nurses.
I dedicate this analysis, as a humble but, deep heartfelt tribute, to each one of you.
Providing efficient and good quality care is an essential function in the field of nursing. They are trained to provide care in tactic practices that receive the patient, and is in close permanent communication not only with the patient, but the doctors in chief and patients’ relatives; that often works as a mere link between the parties.
Nurses are those assisting the doctor and the patient, nevertheless, they are many times who own the news as results of diagnosis that relatives are anxious to listen, even though is not good ones. They are those who turn to their resources and psychology skills in order to be assertive in what they need to communicate. They are tactfully when serving people, they have sanity, they have patience, empathy, good sense, and humanity for each of their patients when providing their services.
It is on the nurses where the bulk of the work carried out in hospitals falls (according to the World Health Organization, it is around 80% of the care and attention that the patient receives from the nursing staff).
You, nurses, deserve a parade, a monument, like the national memorial day in your honor. But, not only that, you deserve better conditions in terms of safety equipment and supplies that are necessary to develop activities and carry out your work. You deserve better income because you assist lives, take care of them, protect them, and are part of a very small number of areas in the socioeconomic sector that are fundamental to maintain a society sane. Your role is more than virtuous!
Sorry, for having you at the forefront of the war without adequate equipment nor weapons!
Sorry, for those who fought against you being offensive, throwing coffee on your clothes, on your body and faces, with contempt! Those people are bewildered because of the lack of information and ignorance, and fear.
Sorry, for the lethargy and the meager support you have received, for having you in such lamentable conditions to be able to develop and perform your duty properly!
Sorry, for the empty answers and the shipwreck, without strategy nor opportunity! That does not represent us as Mexicans.
Sorry, from the heart! We, Mexicans, love you a lot! We do appreciate and value such laudable work on the battlefield.
When we take a breath from all this tragedy that prevails, we must work to define and outline proposals for lines of action and present them to our authorities.
The nursing staff has total and absolute interference to be able to contribute to the proposals to be made in the field of research and development of models that innovate the activities of care provision, making clear the validation of efficient schemes with diligent and effective operation. In other words, they can contribute to the approach for a reconfiguration of public policies.
It is time to reduce the gap between profession of nursing and authorities in order to avoid the difficulties when it comes to transmitting the message to people in charge of formulating policies and can be done as a –tailored suit- and no words outlined in mere obscolescence.
It is time to change the way we do things from how we have been doing them in the past. This reality is asking for it, and it is screaming at us out loud!
This is achieved based on the diagnosis of the main actors in the health field: nurses. As well as the detection of the areas of opportunity that were seen – and that continue to be seen – in this pandemic phase in which we find ourselves.
We truly need to converge, both government and health professionals and society.
And I am not talking about assumptions or some mere hypothetical exercise, like those that are posed in an academic classroom, I am talking about the present.
The pandemic came to make a scandal – and, moreover, painful – a call for the attention of what we still need to review, analyze, value, create, develop to improve, to implement. The difficulties in the health sector are publicly known, ranging from deficiencies in surgical materials to management and monitoring of medical treatments and supply of medicines, and others.
Inefficiency is costing us, as it is charging us the highest bill that can be paid: human lives.
Only together can we find solutions. We need to seek to push such urgent structural changes in public policy, planning to prevent and control, management, and reformulation at a systemic and comprehensive level, as well as the design of a robust budget for the health sector.
I am confident that the changes sought will result from all this, to strengthen us in trained personnel, facilities, equipment, and technologies, and to be able to face any onslaught in the matter that comes our way.
“The feelings are diluted in words; Actions that bring results should be distilled.”
-F. Nightingale.
Thank you very much, dear nurses!
By Alfonso Tornero Soto
Alfonso Tornero Soto is an Economist, specializing in Finance. He has a Master’s degree in Business Administration and doctoral credits in Environmental Impact and Sustainability. He is also a Corporate Consultant, Social Analyst, and lecturer and contributor to the newspaper El Sol de Mazatlán. Starting September 2020, Alfonso is now a columnist for The Mazatlan Post as well.
