Italy lacks nurses, Olbia offers a new degree course

In Italy, the shortage of nurses is an urgent and worrying issue, and Olbia has decided to take up this challenge by offering a new degree course in Nursing.

According to the Court of Auditors, there are at least 65.000 nurses missing, a situation that will worsen in the next ten years with the departure of a quadruple number of professionals compared to the previous decade. Italy is also the OECD country with the lowest number of nurses per 1.000 inhabitants, with an average of 6,4 against 9,5 of the European average. Not only that: It has the lowest number of nursing graduates per 100.000 inhabitants, only 17 against an average of 48.

The importance of the nursing profession

The data emerged during the conference "Challenges and opportunities of the nursing profession", organized by the Rectors' Conference and the Fnopi (Federazione nazionale degli Ordini delle professioni infermieristiche “National Federation of Orders of the nursing professions”) and held on July 4.

"Without a structural intervention in a position to ridare attractiveness to the profession and to riequilibrare the organic ones - it has explained the Fnopi - the deficiency does not remain more a problem of the profession, but becomes of the Country and the citizens. Without nurses there is no future, there is no health and there is no assistance for an increasingly elderly, fragile and lonely population".

Barbara Mangiacavalli, president of the Fnopi, has emphasized the necessary structural solutions: "increasing the contractual basis and economic recognition of the nursing professions, recognition of the skills acted and the evolution of the university training path, with specializations".

The initiative of UniOlbia and Uniss

To meet this challenge, Olbia will launch a new degree course in Nursing, offered by the University of Sassari with the support of the UniOlbia Consortium. The course, starting from the academic year 2024/2025, will be based at Mater Olbia, in a modern and functional building whose work will be completed by summer 2024.

The degree programme in Nursing represents one of the strategic projects of UniOlbia and the University of Sassari. It is the first time in the history of the University of Sassari that a degree course in Medicine is offered outside the city of Sassari. The choice of Olbia as a location is not accidental: the city, thanks to its geographical location, connections with the rest of Italy and Europe, and its social and economic dynamism, offers an ideal environment for young students.