“Badly paid”, “badly viewed”, “undervalued” and “exploited” are just some of the arguments that nurses use when explaining why they leave the country. in search of a land that contains them and gives them back a little of all the effort they put into their jobs every day.
When the The World Health Organization suggests a rate of no less than four nurses per thousand inhabitants, the National Ministry of Health estimates that in Argentina there are only three. So far, cold data. On the other hand, and closer to the current social temperature, it is estimated that in the last two decades, approximately a thousand nurses per year leave the country for the United States and Europe, where they not only find satisfactory working conditions, but salaries in line with the importance of their tasks that allow them to lead a dignified life, much higher than what they had in Argentina.
“Nostalgia is heavy, but it is harder to have two jobs a week, juggle to pay the rent, and struggle to make ends meet. “What life is that?” asks Fernando Galiano., who has been in San Donato Milanese for less than a year, 30 kilometers from Milan, a city where he was welcomed like a savior. And he says: “In Italy and other European countries there is a lack of nurses and that is why they give us all the facilities so that we can arrive and work automatically. During my last months in Buenos Aires, my current boss asked me every day when I was going to come. Language is not a problem because the floor managers are bilingual and the working conditions are optimal so that everyone knows what to do. The patients thank us for coming. They also love Argentinians, not only because of Maradona or Messi, but because we solve all kinds of problems. Anyone who worked in a public hospital like me for twenty years is qualified to work in any hospital in the world.”.
And with a concrete reflection he is sincere: “There are no insecurity problems here, there are no pickets, there is no transport strike, inflation is non-existent and I can go to the supermarket and buy without seeing prices. You don’t become a millionaire, but you gain quality of life, something that no longer exists in Argentina.”
Hinge. One of the moments of greatest exodus was the crisis of 2001. However, the nursing profession in Argentina always lacked prestige and was considered last on the health scale. He Nelson Cantarutti from Cordobaa renowned nurse who in the midst of the pandemic worked in Bergamo, Italy, where Covid exploded, remembers: “Working in the intensive care unit in my city Córdoba was my best university because I learned everything that later here in the middle of the pandemic saved thousands of lives.. I now live and work in the canton of Ticino, where I can see the Swiss Alps from my office window. Nursing in Argentina is underrated, but today I see myself at 52 years old having a profession that allows me to work anywhere in the world. I travel all over Europe thanks to my salary, while in Córdoba I was lucky to keep my car.”
Benjamin Coria He is an Argentinian who has been working in Rochester, New York for 15 years. “A nurse in the United States is middle class. Live well and save better. The average salary is 100 thousand dollars a year, much higher than that of a teacher or a bank teller. In Argentina, a banker who does not have any degree earns much more than a nurse, who only saves your life,” he says ironically.
And he adds: “The concept of a nurse in Argentina is outdated. Here we go to work happily because we know that what we give comes back to us in our salary. We are loved and respected. Both generate empathy and authority. What’s more, after the pandemic, our salaries increased much more than the cost of living because they understood that we are indispensable.”
Another country experiencing a major health crisis is Germany. It is estimated that they need about 50,000 nurses to fill the positions properly. “The student population is dedicated to the exact sciences, so health care is in deficit,” says Andy, Brazilian by birth but with twelve years in Argentina studying and working at the German Hospital. Today he lives in Düsseldorf “simply because in Buenos Aires he did not envision a prosperous future.”
“In Germany,” he says, “if they deviate half a centimeter from what the manuals say, they don’t know what to do. I, as a South American, am light years ahead of them in everything that is hospitable. That’s why they suffered so much during the pandemic, because they went outside the scripts and their papers burned. A nurse in any German city earns between 2,500 and 4,000 euros and lives really well. You forget forever about insecurity and crises, but you have to know the language, something that does not happen in more Latin or more deprived countries.”
Health influencer. Milca Velasquez, better known in networks such as Milquita, lives in Belgium and for some time now has been an ambassador for Argentine nurses in Europe, providing information and linking them with institutions in need of personnel. “This month I managed to get 25 Argentine nurses to complete their paperwork to work in different countries in Europe.“, it states. She traveled with her husband and her one and a half year old daughter, and the economic and social tranquility that she has in the city of Mons does not change it for anything. “My dream since I was a girl was to have my own house. In Buenos Aires I remember that I went to the bank and they asked me for a thousand papers with unpayable interest, in addition to the fact that my profession as a nurse did not generate any trust in them.. Here in Mons, two years after arriving, I went to the bank and they only asked me for the last three pay stubs to give me the credit with which I bought my current house. And I wasn’t even a Belgian citizen, but they gave me a twenty-year loan with 4 percent interest. Incredible but real”.
The rest of the world does seem to have understood the concept of “essential work” left by the pandemic.. And as long as the exhausting work days, lack of supplies and little social recognition of their tasks continue in Argentina, emigration will continue to increase.
