Every year on the 12th of May we celebrate International Nurses Day #IND2022. The 12th May is the anniversary of Florence Nightingale’s birth and it gives us the opportunity to celebrate the work of nurses around the world.
This year the theme for #IND2022 is Nurses: A Voice to Lead – Invest in Nursing and respect rights to secure global health. I am excited by this focus on global health. Working with ICPCN we see the work that nurses do around the world for children’s palliative care. We know the importance and value of learning from each other and through the pandemic, we are very aware of the impact that the work that we do as nurses in one country impacts the work that nurses do in another country. We all need to be involved in Global Health, it is not an optional extra but an imperative for all of us. We have a moral and practical duty to tackle the rising tide of poverty and ill-health in low and middle-income countries, to strengthen local capacity, and empower nurses around the world.
As nurses, we should have a voice to lead, a collective voice of over 27.9 million nurses around the world. Yet for many nurses, finding their voice can be hard. In many countries the status of nurses is poor – they are not given the professional recognition that they deserve, they are not given ‘a seat at the table’ or given the opportunity to lead. Whilst the right to health is a human right, and we need to respect rights to secure global health, we also need to respect the rights of nurses around the world that their work is recognised, that they have decent working conditions and salaries, and are given a voice to lead!
As we celebrate #IND2022 we would like to thank nurse’s around the world for all they do and in particular, for all that they do for children’s palliative care – thank you!
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