Roberto De Gregorio | Healthcare Workers for Gaza, Cardarelli Hospital, Naples (Italy)
Hi, I’m Roberto De Gregorio, a nurse at Cardarelli Hospital, the largest hospital in southern Italy. I work in an emergency department. My hospital serves as an important center for emergency services in Campania region and stands as a major hub for southern Italy. When I first started working, I felt the need to ensure my role wasn’t just about providing healthcare, but also about building a connection with workers so they could ask deeper questions about why certain things happen in a hospital.
These issues could simply be staff shortages, or budget cuts, or a large number of people falling ill. Addressing these questions also create greater peace of mind from a work perspective. For this reason I’ve always tried to stay on the front lines and connect with other workers to foster a more constructive debate. One of the most important things we’ve done during this period is to join the Global Movement in Support of Palestine.
Why did we join forces, and above all, what do health, healthcare, war, and the fight against war have to do with each other? The fundamental reason is that military funding and budget cuts come directly at the expense of public services. One of our slogans was “less money for arsenals, more resources for community medicine and hospitals”. Why is this our slogan? Because ever-increasing cuts are being made to healthcare.
We see how hospitals are closed, but when it comes to funding wars, armaments, and wars in Ukraine, money is immediately found and resources are available. So when there’s a shortage of nurses, when people get sick, we felt the need to ask: “Is there any money?”. Yes, there is. The excuse that there’s no money is simply false. The money is there, but what are the used for? Producing death, that is, producing and funding wars. We are a hospital, we produce life, we produce health, but what do they do?
Instead of subsidizing prevention, what do they do? They finance wars. So the first, most heartfelt motivation was this one. The second, which is no less important is what we saw, especially in the war in Palestine. We saw more than 1,500 healthcare workers killed and imprisoned, hospitals and ambulances targeted. This was not simply, as is often said, “the effects of a war”; it wasn’t just a missile hitting a hospital by chance.
No, they were targeted because destroying healthcare means destroying the ability to receive treatment for those people affected by the war. By targeting and killing over 1,500 healthcare workers, we felt that we ourselves were being targeted. These victims are our brothers and colleagues. We decided we could not remain silent about the destruction of healthcare and the genocide taking place, which explicitly targets the medical sector. Not only was genocide taking place, but the right to healthcare was also being denied.
The first thing we started to do was support various movements that were emerging in Italy. As workers at Cardarelli, we decided to bring these national initiatives directly into our own hospital. These initiatives began with fasts. Let’s say our goal was to start raising awareness among workers about what was happening internationally. We initially started with fasts, even simply going out to hand out flyers. I started, after another colleague started, and then another colleague, initially there were just a few of us.
We started handing out flyers and attaching them near the time clock of the initiatives that were being held, and we saw that people were starting to respond. There was a strong response. The other aspect is that as we saw the initiative progressing—but above all, as the conflict continued—we saw an ever-increasing desire among the workers to feel part of something. Initially, we were the ones asking workers to take a selfie or record a video to participate in these massive global initiatives.
But at a certain point, the workers themselves started telling us, “Why don’t you come to my department? I want to participate too”.
So, a network was created. In fact, during one of the many initiatives we organized—for example, on the day of solidarity for political prisoners and the arrested nurses and doctors—all the departments of Cardarelli, more than 40 departments, wanted to contribute by taking a photograph. So when the release was requested, all the departments asked to participate, even the head doctors began to take a stand and speak out. At a certain point we always organized as workers, but with the perspective that a national movement already existed.
However, our role was to root it deeply within our own hospital, because it’s never a given that this will happen unless someone rolls up their sleeves and actually starts doing it. The most beautiful initiative took place one evening. We even involved the hospital management. We illuminated the entire central pavilion of Cardarelli with the colors of the peace flag. Meanwhile, more than 200 workers gathered below in the evening and read aloud the names of the healthcare workers who had died during the bombings and the Israeli aggression.
This act moved me deeply because it really gives meaning to what we do: beyond producing health and being healthcare workers, it makes you feel part of a change. So it seemed as if there was a desire to take the next step, which would be to make this collective spirit concrete by creating a permanent collective within the hospital because we do not have to act only when wars break out. We are perhaps too used to being people who cure, perhaps we should start talking about prevention.
As if in reality fewer and fewer people were getting sick even the wars were avoided, so it would be appropriate to create collectives within each hospital that put the hospitals’ problems at the centre. But as these hospitals’ problems are actually the consequence of political problems we’re discussing this and starting to try to find political solutions. I’m saying this because we mustn’t let every hospital save itself, every department save itself, every worker thinks about working for himself.
Because we must dismantle this concept, the product of a concept that is the fruit of capitalism: “Everyone must save themselves if they can”; “I just need to work in a better department”. In reality this concept can be dismantled by starting to talk about the bigger problems, by starting to talk about collectivity and by starting to show that no one is alone and that we are all united. This war has shown that. Despite our differences, we have all united, beyond the unions, beyond everything.
We have all united with the common goal of stopping a genocide like the one in Gaza. I don’t know if there are other healthcare workers at this international assembly, but it would be nice to stay in touch. As a healthcare worker, I’d say we’re inclined to talk about care. I’m thinking that capitalism is the disease and socialism is the cure. We, starting with healthcare, in every workplace and everywhere, we must be bearers of care, building alternatives and ensuring that the seeds of future societies are created everywhere.
Because with them (the capitalists), we could only end up in death, in destruction. Goodbye, comrades, and hasta la victoria siempre!