I am a nurse. I chose this profession because I like to care for people, and I continue to do so with the same commitment as the first day. But vocation cannot be an excuse for anything goes. Public healthcare is one of the greatest treasures of our country, and it must be protected. And this means taking care of the professionals who sustain it. We often hear about resources, budgets, and waiting lists, but very little about the human toll behind each consultation, each home visit, and each night on call.
Working at the Catalan Institute of Health, I have seen how there is increasing care pressure and less job stability. The feeling, for years, is that temporary positions and stable contracts are becoming increasingly scarce. We move between contracts of weeks or days, or to cover holidays and absences. Today you work in one center; tomorrow, in another. Today you have one schedule; tomorrow, a completely different one. Double shifts when the service requires it. You reorganize your life again and again. Work-life balance simply becomes an empty concept.
All this led me to make a decision I never would have imagined: I temporarily left my nursing position for another job to regain some family stability. I needed to know when I would be working, organize my children's lives, stop being dependent on the phone and constant schedule changes. But I also needed to stop living with the anxiety of not knowing if I would have a contract the following month to pay for my children's extracurricular activities or if I could fill the shopping basket.
There is a contradiction that is difficult to understand: we lament the shortage of nurses, but we do not do enough to retain them; we train extraordinarily prepared professionals and then let them go. Many colleagues leave for other autonomous communities or other countries where they find better working conditions and more recognition.
Because different health professions are treated differently. When a doctor takes on hundreds more patients, this extra effort is recognized and, in many cases, compensated. At the Catalan Health Institute, this is known as the professional's "escreix" (surplus/excess), and it is the doctor who decides whether to accept it. In contrast, when a nurse takes on more patients, more care, more home visits, more follow-ups, more health education, more anxious families, and more responsibilities, this increase in workload is often assumed as an obligation. Without being able to decide, without the ability to refuse it, and usually without any financial compensation. The responsibility increases, but the recognition does not.
We are the ones who enter homes, who heal wounds, who detect complications before they become irreversible, who sit beside a person who has just received a difficult diagnosis, who hold a patient's hand when they are afraid, and who accompany families through a grieving process. We are the ones who listen, reassure, and emotionally support people going through the most difficult moments of their lives. And we are also the ones who too often have to endure intimidation, verbal abuse, and in some cases, even physical assault.
Without nursing, healthcare simply wouldn't function. And yet, there are still those who say: "She's just a nurse." And this only weighs a lot.
I am not writing this article out of resentment. I am writing it because I still deeply love my profession. I am writing it because I believe in public healthcare and because I am concerned about its future. I am writing it because behind every uniform there is a person who also has a family, who also needs to rest, and who also deserves a dignified life.
That is why today I also dare to ask for something: that someone take care of us a little.
