Our international nursing theme edition will arrive in your letterbox or on your tearoom table soon after the launch of the global nursing initiative Nursing Now.
While this edition of Nursing Review focuses on Kiwi nurses using their profession as a ticket to see the world and/or make a difference, Nursing Now looks at how strengthening nursing globally can make its mark on the world’s health and wealth.
The campaign grew out of a report by the UK’s All-Party Parliamentary Group on Global Health, led by former chief executive of the National Health Service (NHS) Lord Nigel Crisp, and is being run in collaboration with the World Health Organization (WHO) and the International Council of Nurses (ICN).
The UK ‘Triple Impact’ report argues that achieving the ambitious United Nations target of providing universal health coverage for the world’s people cannot possibly be achieved without strengthening nursing globally – not only by increasing the number of nurses (currently the US has around 30 times more nurses per 1,000 people than Mozambique and Ethiopia), but also, and crucially, by ensuring that nurses’ contributions are acknowledged and they can work to their full potential.
The report goes on to argue that boosting nursing globally will have a triple impact as it can improve people’s health and can also have major effects on gender equality and countries’ economies. By developing and investing in nurses – the vast majority of whom are women – new community leaders who can act as role models and mentors to other women and girls are created; women gain economic independence and empowerment; and local economies are strengthened.
Nursing Now has gained the support not only of WHO’s new chief nurse, Cook Islands nursing leader Elizabeth Iro, but also of HRH The Duchess of Cambridge; both will be at the London launch on 27 February.
By putting nursing at the forefront of politicians’ and policy-makers’ minds and enabling the richest countries to work with some of the poorest to support investment in nursing training, the aim is that nurses will be able fulfil their potential of making a difference to the world’s health.
Fiona Cassie, Editor
[email protected]
