In light of the recent events on Ebola and the first case of infection outside Africa that happened in Spain, the Spanish General Nursing Council and the International Council of Nurses organised an World Summit on ‘nursing & Ebola’ in Madrid, on 27-28 October 2014. The aim of the event was to evaluate the situation, share experiences and best practices, and consider what and how changes could be introduced to increase safety and to reduce the risks for the nurses taking care of an infected person.
Participating in this important meeting and having listened carefully to the several testimonies, the EFN is extremely concerned about the working conditions in which Spanish nurses have to work: lack of appropriate training, unclear instructions, lack of comprehensive protocols, and ineffective preventive and protective measures, next to stigmatisation. For the EFN, advocating every day for the nurses and the nursing profession, it is unacceptable to hear that nurses are risking their own lives every day, knowing that 95% of the work is carried out by nurses.
Regrettably, the repeated cuts in the health care systems are now taking their toll. Without appropriate resources and investments, and sufficient number of highly qualified and competent workforce, there is not enough protective measures to safeguard safety. The EFN is, therefore, calling on the EU institutions to ensure actions to protect the most vulnerable: the fieldworkers that provide direct patient care.
In today’s Press Conference, the EFN General Secretary expressed that “solidarity is key to tackle EBOLA. Stigmatisation of patients and nurses is unacceptable. Nurses are losing their job, their family, their friends, just because they took care of patients with ebola. Who is protecting the individual nurse?”
Furthermore, the EU institutions need to recognise that nurses are daily working at the bedside. We are not discussing a new theory, we are discussing daily reality: how to get the appropriate material to do our job, what standards and protocols to use to protect us from harm, and where to go if something goes wrong? The EU has the legislative framework since 2010 (Directive 2010/32/EU) to provide clear, professional and legislative answers. When are governments going to transpose legislative compliance into daily operational reality?
Finally, we need to collect the qualitative and quantitative data to learn out of what happened and help each other to improve the health care systems in the EU. We need urgently to stop “blaming and shaming”. Nurses’ commitment to take care of those who need care, with the support of their leaders, is key to have trust in the system. Nurses will feel safe if the system they operate in is trustful.