"Italian nurses are better-looking"

"Italian nurses are better-looking...These [U.S.] ones scare me a bit. Don't even think about leaving me alone at night with one of them."

December 22, 2006 -- These are the reported comments of Silvio Berlusconi, Italian Opposition leader, former Prime Minister (2001-2006), and billionaire media tycoon, on December 22, 2006, analyzing the care he was receiving at the Cleveland Clinic while receiving a pacemaker.

We know what you're thinking: what a nice way for Mr. Berlusconi (right) to say "thank you" to the skilled U.S. nurses who'd been keeping him alive, and to demonstrate his diplomatic skills. But our problem is not so much with the former Prime Minister's views on whether one group of nurses is more attractive than another. And we realize that Mr. Berlusconi's latter comments are an attempt at humor.

But we are troubled by a world in which those at the very pinnacle of the governmental, corporate, and media sectors--e.g., Mr. Berlusconi--would even suggest that the measure of a nurse is her physical appearance. His comment about being left alone at night suggests that he may also believe that it is a nurse's job to provide sex to patients. Or maybe he just thinks U.S. nurses are such monsters that they might attack him, rather than simply making the expected nursing sex unpleasant.

Whichever it is, it seems that Mr. Berlusconi does not understand that nurses are not models or sex workers. Instead, they are health professionals with years of college-level science training whose job it is to keep patients alive 24/7. Had the esteemed Cleveland Clinic obliged Mr. Berlusconi by keeping all the nurses away from him at night, he could well have died. Of course, if his attitudes prevail, he and everyone else may soon find out what it's like to get no skilled nursing care.

Click here to send a letter to Silvio Berlusconi!

Why don't nurses get the respect and resources to provide the care their patients need?

Understanding.

Resources don't flow to nursing when the profession is undervalued by the public and its leaders. The Center works to increase the value society places on nursing. That will bring more resources to nursing clinical practice (e.g. improving staffing levels), education, and research. That will help nurses care for patients.

But we cannot do this on our own. Our tiny staff has donated over ten thousand of hours of our time over the past five years to the Center's work. To build a stronger, more sustainable organization, we need your help.

Please help us reach our fundraising goal of US$75,000. We thank those who have donated. But to those who have not:

Can you help us come closer to meeting our goal by making a tax-deductible contribution today? Remember, it's just US$25 to join, and only US$9 for students and recent graduates.

**YES! I want to tell Prime Minister Berlusconi that nurses are life-saving professionals, not eye candy, and help the Center continue its important work.

**YES! I want to help the Center continue its important work. I realize that in order to build a strong profession, nurses and their friends need to support the Center. The Center works to fix the largest bedrock problem facing the profession--undervaluation.

I know that undervaluation like that expressed by Mr. Berlusconi undermines progress in key areas, including in improving workplace problems like short staffing, and getting adequate resources for nursing faculty and research.

I also know that part of advocating for patients is making sure that nurses have the resources they need.

And I know that the Center's tiny staff cannot volunteer the vast majority of its work for the Center indefinitely.

So I will support the Center, because I value the work it has done for nursing and the work it will do in the future.

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Learn more about what the Center has done to improve understanding of nursing this past year.

Thank you for all of your support over the past year. You are the reason we've had a real impact on public understanding of nursing worldwide. Together, we can strengthen nursing, and give patients the kind of health care they deserve in 2007 and beyond!

Sandy Summers, RN, MSN, MPH
Executive Director
The Center for Nursing Advocacy
203 Churchwardens Rd.
Baltimore, MD USA 21212-2937
office 1-410-323-1100
fax 1-443-705-0260
ssummers@nursingadvocacy.org

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After you email your letter on our form, please print it out and snail mail it to:

Silvio Berlusconi
Forza Italia
Via dell'Umiltà 36
00187 ROMA
ITALY

or call:
Tel. +39-06-673-1276
Fax +39-06-673-1231 (From the US, precede these numbers with 011)

We send your letters by email to:
Email: BERLUSCONI_S@camera.it and fi-adesioni@forzait.org or adesioni@forza-italia.it or info@forzaitaliagiovani.it

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