THE IMPACT OF A GLOBAL PANDEMIC ON THE INTERNATIONAL YEAR OF THE NURSE AND MIDWIFE In 2020, the International Year of the Nurse and Midwife and planned culmination of the global Nursing Now campaign, the role of nurses, midwives and carers has been thrust into the spotlight in the face of the COVID-19 pandemic. Robert Fedele writes.
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n April, when British Prime Minister Boris Johnson was discharged from hospital after recovering from coronavirus, he singled out two intensive care nurses for standing by his bedside and providing the care that saved his life. The praise was symbolic of the increased visibility and appreciation of nurses worldwide amid the COVID-19 pandemic. “It showed that he saw the intellectual work that nurses do along with the compassion and caring,” reflects Emeritus Professor Jill White, Nursing Now Campaign Board member for the World Health Organization’s (WHO) Western Pacific Region. “To have some important policymakers see nursing in that way was terrific. It’s just a shame it takes a life-threatening episode for that to occur.” The intention of 2020 International Year of the Nurse and Midwife was to raise awareness about the complex work nurses and midwives do, help drive universal health coverage and get more nurses and
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midwives involved in policy and decisionmaking. But COVID-19, justifiably, has taken priority.
Throughout the pandemic, the media and public have often referred to nurses as the frontline.
“The campaign hasn’t quite been the celebration that we had hoped it would be,” Professor White says, referring to targets to get more nurses included in policy conversations.
But Professor White considers them the last line of defence against COVID-19 and says the public must continue to abide by social distancing restrictions, handwashing and wearing masks if the battle can be won.
“While the public express gratitude to nurses for the role that we’re playing [during this pandemic] there is still a long way to go in converting clapping and chocolates to inclusion in policy about everything from proper fit testing of masks to appropriate access to Personal Protective Equipment (PPE).
Another ongoing narrative compared nurses to superheroes.
“More than anything, we need inclusion of nurses at high-level decision making at the state and federal level. That will really show that both the International Year of the Nurse and Midwife and the pandemic have actually had some positive outcome, not just for nurses, but for the health of the public into the future.”
“It’s good to be recognised as important but more important to recognise that in doing what we do, we are doing our job, competently, in a well-educated way, appropriately,” Professor White argues. “When we get put on pedestals, when people get called superheroes, they become something other and that doesn’t necessarily help with us being seen in our rightful role as incredibly important contributors in an ongoing way to healthcare.” At the beginning of the International Year of the Nurse and Midwife, Professor White
