ASGI, Lunaria and “Italians without citizenship” appealed to the Ministry of Health, the Parliament and the Government: those who have a permit of have the right to apply.
Brief international press review
Italy is short on healthcare workers, but its jobs are closed to most immigrants – Quartz, November 24 2020
According to Italy’s laws, the only non-Italians that can be hired in public roles (which include most healthcare workers) are European citizens, their relatives, or foreigners who have a long-term residency permit (so-called “permesso di soggiorno“), which is acquired after living in Italy for at least five years continuously with specific income, employment, and housing requirements.
(…) Only a minority of foreigners in Italy hold a long-term permit. In March the Italian government introduced a temporary change, allowing the recruitment of immigrant healthcare workers holding temporary residency permits, too, for the duration of the Covid-19 emergency, a move immigrant rights advocates criticized as opportunistic.
(…) Yet in most cases, the requirements listed in the job postings have not taken into account the newly introduced exception, says Paola Fierro, a lawyer from ASGI, an organization researching immigration policy. Many hospitals, regions, and even country-wide job postings continue to be closed to most immigrants.
Foreign-born doctors reignite Italy’s citizenship debate – Politico, December 13, 2020
When the Italian government labeled Sicily a high-risk region last month over fears that the island’s limited resources would hamper its response to the second wave of the pandemic, Rumon Siddique got ready to help.
The region, one of Italy’s poorest, is struggling with a lack of doctors and nurses — and Siddique, a 29-year-old junior doctor born in Bangladesh and trained in Italy, has the necessary skills to step in. But because he doesn’t hold Italian citizenship, he’s unable to apply for open positions.
He was puzzled to learn that Sicilian authorities had instead asked the government of Cuba to deploy 60 health care workers.
“The paradox is that we already have doctors here, without having to ask Cuba,” said Siddique, who works at the Paolo Giaccone University Hospital in the Sicilian capital Palermo. “There are many foreign doctors already living in Italy, willing to fill that void. But because they don’t have Italian citizenship, they are often forgotten.”
After ASGI, the lawyers’ organization, sent a letter to the Italian interior ministry complaining that many regions were still not complying with the “Cure Italy” decree, some hospitals and regions changed their stance and opened jobs to non-EU applicants.