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International Nurses Day is celebrated around the world every May 12, the anniversary of Florence Nightingale’s birth.
The theme for the 2022 resource is Nurses: A Voice to Lead – Invest in Nursing and respect rights to secure global health.
Key facts
- Approximately 27 million men and women make up the global nursing and midwifery workforce. This accounts for nearly 50% of the global health workforce.
- There is a global shortage of health workers, in particular nurses and midwives, who represent more than 50% of the current shortage in health workers.
- The largest needs-based shortages of nurses and midwives are in South East Asia and Africa.
- For all countries to reach Sustainable Development Goal 3 on health and well-being, WHO estimates that the world will need an additional 9 million nurses and midwives by the year 2030.
- Nurses play a critical role in health promotion, disease prevention and delivering primary and community care. They provide care in emergency settings and will be key to the achievement of universal health coverage.
- Achieving health for all will depend on there being sufficient numbers of well-trained and educated, regulated and well-supported nurses and midwives, who receive pay and recognition commensurate with the services and quality of care that they provide.
- Investing in nurses and midwives is good value for money. The report of the UN High-Level Commission on Health Employment and Economic Growth concluded that investments in education and job creation in the health and social sectors result in a triple return of improved health outcomes, global health security, and inclusive economic growth.
- Globally, 70% of the health and social workforce are women compared to 41% in all employment sectors. Nursing and midwifery occupations represent a significant share of the female workforce.
In 2021, WHO adopted the document Global Strategic Directions on Nursing and Midwifery 2021–2025, covering four key policy areas: education, jobs, leadership, and service delivery. Its recommendations include 1) educating enough midwives and nurses with competencies to meet population health needs; 2) creating jobs, managing migration, and recruiting and retaining midwives and nurses where they are most needed; 3) strengthening nursing and midwifery leadership throughout health and academic systems; and ensure that these staffs are supported, respected, protected, motivated, and equipped to safely and optimally contribute in their service delivery settings.
The COVID-19 pandemic has had a significant impact on health, life, and livelihoods, causing a social and economic crisis marked by massive unemployment, impoverishment, and the worsening of longstanding inequities. The pandemic also exposed chronic underinvestment in human resources for health and the lack of systems with information on the deployment, makeup, and attributes of interprofessional health teams. As health systems have expanded, countries have found it difficult to hire, deploy, protect, and retain health workers, including psychosocial support for frontline workers
