'Nursing the World to Health'
The challenges that nurses face have been compounded by COVID-19. But it shouldn’t take a pandemic, as Australian politician Tanya Plibersek tweets, to make us all appreciate how important nurses and midwives are.
In preparation for celebrating International Nurses Day on May 12, the International Council of Nurses (ICN) has released a toolkit called Nurses – A Voice to Lead for All in line with the 2020 theme of ‘Nursing the world to health’. When the World Health Assembly designated 2020 as the International Year of the Nurse and the Midwife, it has given nurses a global spotlight and a chance to promote the profession across the world and educate the public on what nurses do. In 2020 ‘we are not just celebrating a day or a week - the whole year is ours’, says Howard Catton, ICN CEO. In this toolkit, Catton emphasizes the need to address the global shortage of nurses, unleash the potential of advanced practice nurses, address gender inequalities and raise the profile of nursing: ‘There is no health without a health workforce!’
In April, WHO released the State of the World’s Nursing Report which provides a global snapshot and insight into the ‘largest health workforce on the planet’ (Annette Kennedy). There are 20 million nurses worldwide but we urgently need 5.9 million more – especially in low to middle income countries.
Protection of workers in the key message from Director-General of the Red Cross, Robert Mardini, “Nurses are the world’s lifesavers. They are risking their own health to help those suffering from COVID-19”, states Mardini. “Stigmatization and violence against nurses and other health workers in some countries is shocking; the only response is zero-tolerance,” said ICN President Annette Kennedy. “The pandemic has seen frontline nurses rightly recognised as heroes, but they are also ordinary mothers and fathers with their own families to protect. They deserve to be able to work free from fear, whether because of a lack of PPE or because of harassment and attack.”
On the eve of International Nurses Day, WHO, ICN and Nursing Now have encouraged the public to take part in a global movement of reflection for those nurses and health workers who have died as a result of COVID-19: #RememberHealthHeroes
As Dr Tedros said in his speech to the ICN Congress in 2019, “We simply cannot achieve universal health coverage and the health-related targets in the Sustainable Development Goals unless we empower and equip nurses and midwives, and harness their power.”
A systematic review of public perceptions of nursing discovered that, while the public respects nurses, they do not always understand what they do. Dr Barbara Stillwell, Executive Director of Nursing Now Global Campaign asks, ‘Is 2020 an opportunity for nurses to do better at explaining what they do, why they do it and how it can change health outcomes?’ Find out more.
After requests we have set up a Pacific nurses SPCNMOA facebook page, please circulate this link and join yourself, link with Tisha if any problems. We aim to moderate said facebook page and share nursing resources.
Finally a message from the Faculty of Health UTS as you will know we have again been awarded #1 in Australia for nursing and midwifery and today launch the School of Nursing and Midwifery website with messages from Faculty staff to celebrate International Year of the Nurse with a particular focus from our region on what ‘Nurses are…’; Part 1 & Part 2 .
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As Howard Catton says:
2020 is a start not the end; it is the opportunity to begin a new chapter but it is not our destination .... we are an indispensable and unstoppable force and together we can, we will, nurse the world to health!