Evrópusamtök hjúkrunarfræðinga styðja hjúkrunarfræðinga á Íslandi í baráttu sinni til launa í samræmi við ábyrgð og menntun:
"The European Federation of Nurses Associations (EFN) has been informed by the Icelandic Nurses Association (member of the EFN) that nurses in Iceland are on strike for the 6th consecutive day, to request equal pay as other university educated professionals in Iceland.
Since the beginning of the global financial crisis in 2008 the EFN and its 34 EU Member Associations have observed its negative effects on nurses and nursing: reduction in nurses’ posts, nurses’ pay cuts and salary freezes, diminished recruitment and retention rates, and compromises in quality of care and patient safety. In 2015, this is unacceptable!! All this is putting healthcare and patients’ safety at risk!
Ensuring appropriate education and qualifications, and allowing opportunities to advance the nursing profession are key in order to ensure the sustainability of the health workforce and ensure that young people feel motivated to choose nursing. The national governments need to make sure that the health facilities have the necessary nursing workforce to provide safe and quality healthcare services, and that the nurses’ salaries are valued in the same conditions as the other university educated professionals, taking into account the extra hours worked.
Furthermore, the EFN believes it is important to move away from past male/female stereotypes and take into account that 90% of nurses are women. A lot of progress has been made to protect and promote women’s rights. But a lot still needs to be done in terms of bringing gender to policy making!
Therefore, the EFN calls on the Icelandic Government to go a step further in this debate and make sure that this gender gap between men & women, namely in terms of salaries, is
suppressed. Most policy-makers and politicians say that “nurses are very important!” but there is an urgent need to put these nice words into practice! Hence, the EFN urges all the key players at national and EU levels to find good solutions for nurses as they are the cornerstone of any health system, being at the patients’ bed side and close to the citizens 24 hours/day, 7 days/week!
Yours sincerely,
Paul De Raeve
EFN General Secretary"