55.4% of Canarian nurses do not have a stable contract

Rita Mendoza, president of the Las Palmas Official College of Nursing, and Juan F. Hernández Yánez, sociologist and consultant specializing in the health field. / c7

Nursing

The Official Association of Las Palmas presents a report and calls for measures to attract and retain professionals, through job stability

Most of the nurses in the Canary Islands are either interim or have a temporary, substitution or temporary reinforcement contract. Its about
55.4% of the Canarian nursing staff. In contrast, only 55.4% is indefinite.

This follows from the first
Report on the Situation of Nursing in the Canary Islandsbased on 1,407 surveys carried out among nursing professionals throughout the archipelago.

The study was presented today by Rita Mendoza, president of the Las Palmas Official College of Nursing (CELP), and Juan F. Hernández Yánez, sociologist and consultant specializing in the health field, at the CELP headquarters. All this with the
international nurses day on the horizon, as it is commemorated this Thursday, May 12.

This situation of eventuality and, therefore, of greater job insecurity, especially affects younger nurses . Specific,
77% of professionals aged 30 or under do not have a stable contracta percentage that stands at 67% among nurses between 31 and 40 years of age.

According to the study, accessing job stability is much more difficult today than it was 20 years ago. And it is that,
two decades ago, 60% of nurses took five years to access a permanent position. Currently, only 14% of these professionals have achieved it in the same period of time.

To date, in fact, 60% of the workforce has taken 15 years to obtain a permanent position. Something that 20 years ago, only 2% of nurses suffered from.

Dissatisfaction with management

Despite this scenario, the group feels satisfied with the profession, but not with the conditions that exist to carry out their work.

The factor that arouses the most dissatisfaction, in fact, is the
healthcare system management due to issues such as the lack of promotion of innovation; the lack of collaborative practices with other professions; the
absence of reception plans in centers and units (taking into account that precariousness implies frequent changes of destination, that is, moving from one specialty to another; for example, from maternity to psychiatry); or lack of criteria of merit and capacity in the provision of positions of responsibility.

Along these lines, another piece of information from the report comes into play, and that is that Canarian nurses have a high level of training, since
21.1% have a postgraduate degree2,800 with a master's degree and 200 with a doctor's degree.

In addition, 22.3% have an official title of specialist, with a predominance of Family and Community Nursing, followed by another such as Midwifery (Obstetric-Gynecological Nursing), Mental Health or Pediatric Nursing. Nevertheless,
job insecurity means that they cannot develop professionally in their specialty and that they are stumbling from one destination to another, as Mendoza emphasized.

The youngest squad in Spain

Another aspect to highlight is the youth of the Canarian nursing staff, being, precisely,
the youngest in all of Spain with an aging rate (over 55 years old / under 33) of only 0.31, while the national average is 0.60. Thus, the replacement rate becomes positive, so that
For each retirement, 2.2 professionals graduate.

This, however, can be a double yardstick, since in other national territories the demand for nurses is greater and, therefore, competition grows. In summary, the dissatisfaction of the nurses can lead them to move to other autonomous communities.

It should be noted that the archipelago has 14,500 nursing professionals, of which 78% are women. Despite this, the percentage of male nurses is higher than the national average: 22% compared to 16%.

Claims

From the CELP, they emphasize that nursing must be valued and reinforced, due to current and future health challenges, such as the aging of the population, the increase in chronic diseases or the increase in dependency.

For this reason, they request the Government of the Canary Islands and the Canary Islands Health Service the need to implement measures to attract and retain nurses, through job stability, recognition of the A1 professional category, more opportunities for their professional development, more nurses in leadership positions and greater weight of these professionals, from the point of view of nursing, in decision-making in the public health system.

Finally, the president of the CELP wanted to highlight the importance of this group in containing covid, especially in the areas of
Prevention and health promotion.