In this podcast by the Indo-Pacific Centre for Health Security, Mrs Elizabeth Iro - Chief Nursing Officer for the World Health Organization (WHO) and Ms Michele Rumsey – Director of the WHO Collaborating Centre for Nursing, Midwifery & Health Development at University of Technology Sydney (WHO CC UTS), talk about the vital role that nurses and midwives play in ensuring health systems continue to function under increasingly stressful conditions, such as the current COVID-19 pandemic.
This podcast celebrates 2020 - the International Year of Nurse and Midwife. Elizabeth Iro and Michele Rumsey talk about what this year means to the nursing profession, discuss the challenges of being a nurse during a pandemic and propose actions that address issues such as chronic work force shortages, achieving Universal Health Coverage, gender inequity and the impacts of power imbalances in nursing and health care.
Speaking about the important role of nurses and midwives to ensure better health outcomes for all, Elizabeth Iro and Michele Rumsey emphasise the need for leadership, more support for education and more support for job security to enable necessary policy changes. The speakers also discuss the impact of COVID-19 on the health systems as a whole and health workforce. Speaking about the critical role of leadership for the nursing profession and the impact of COVID-19, Elizabeth Iro said:
COVID-19 has definitely highlighted the value that nurses and midwives are contributing to healthcare… From a leadership perspective, we definitely need to have that voice at the decision-making table. I think we heard in some countries how just having the nurses in the decision making as part of the preparation of the response to COVID-19 actually had some positive rollout for the country in terms of how they addressed the situation.
EIizabeth Iro stresses the importance of leveraging the situation with COVID-19 to achieve necessary policy changes within countries, and calls upon governments to invest in nurses and midwives to provide the necessary health care and better health systems now and in the future.
Michele Rumsey said in summary:
People can never forget that nurses and midwives are there to look after them and you just have to keep remembering that. We have to provide the leadership, the education and the moral support, recognise those nurses and midwives. Of course, at the end of the day they want money to be supported and good equipment but actually they just want to be recognised.
To access the podcast, click here.