Ms Annette Kennedy,
Mr Howard Catton,
Distinguished guests, colleagues, friends,
Good morning, I’m delighted to be here.
I’d like to thank the Government of Singapore and the Singapore Nurses Association for hosting this meeting, and for their support for nursing.
I’d also like to thank and congratulate my sister Annette for her leadership.
Annette, you have done a truly extraordinary job in mobilizing the global nursing workforce, and in highlighting the incredible job that nurses do, and their value to us all.
Congratulations to you, and to all nurses on the 120th anniversary of ICN.
ICN is a very important partner for WHO on a range of issues, including primary health care, universal health coverage, quality of care, noncommunicable diseases, antimicrobial resistance, and more.
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Just yesterday I was in Osaka, Japan for the G20 Summit. The leaders’ declaration resonates with many of the issues you have been discussing here.
In the leaders’ declaration, decent work, healthy ageing, gender equality, lifelong learning and achieving an inclusive and sustainable world were discussed.
In relation to health workforce, the declaration says this: “We will strengthen health systems, with a focus on quality, including through enhancing health workforce and human resources.”
We must all hold the G20 leaders to the commitments they have made.
Not only because that’s what health workers deserve, but because it’s what the world needs.
We simply cannot achieve universal health coverage and the health-related targets in the Sustainable Development Goals unless we empower and equip nurses and midwives, and harness their power.
Nurses and midwives make up almost half of the world’s health workforce.
They are important not just because of their numbers, but because of the vast range of health services they provide.
They deliver safe, effective, respectful and quality care.
I was pleased to hear my friend and colleague Dr Abdulelah Al-Hawsawi talk about “nursing safety for patient safety”.
The Saudi Patient Safety Center is a champion in this area, and I was delighted to speak earlier this year in March at the Global Ministerial Patient Safety Summit in Jeddah, that he led.
Nurses are one of the most important healthcare professions for reducing patient harm. If systems fail, it’s the nurse who can prevent harm.
In low-resource settings, nurses are under constant pressure because of the high volume of patients and long working hours. That makes it a high-risk environment for patients and nurses alike.
Nurses play a vital role in reporting patient harm, so that lessons can be learned and mistakes can be prevented. But they can only do that in a blame-free culture.
Nurses also make a valuable contribution to the science of patient safety. It was a nurse researcher who initially showed that getting patients out of bed as soon as possible after surgery reduced recovery time and complications.
Patient safety must be an essential part of the education and training of all nurses, to avoid clinical errors and make health care safer for all patients, everywhere, every time.
WHO has developed a patient safety curriculum, which is an important resource to meet this need. We’re also developing a package of resources, guidance and tools to strengthen the competencies of health workers.
I ask you all to join with WHO in celebrating the first World Patient Safety Day on 17 September this year.
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My brothers and sisters, we must also confront the reality that too many nurses and midwives experience discrimination and abuse in the workplace.
This is a stain on our sector, and a betrayal of our calling as health professionals.
Health facilities must not only be places of healing for patients. They must be places that foster well-being for health workers, especially those working in vulnerable and fragile settings.
Discrimination and abuse, including violence and harassment, must have no place in our societies, and especially not in our health systems.
In recent years we have seen another disturbing trend, in which health facilities and health workers become targets in conflict.
As you know and as we speak, there is an Ebola outbreak in DRC, and health workers are fighting Ebola there. Last February Joseph Kambale Saanane Visogho, a nurse, was abducted and murdered in the Ebola-affected town of Butembo. In April, a doctor Dr Richard Mouzoko was killed.
This reflects a disturbing trend in which health facilities and health workers become targets in countries.
So far this year, WHO has documented 478 attacks on health facilities, with 72 deaths.
We must be very clear: health workers are not a target.
I am full of admiration for people like Joseph and Richard, and the nurses and other health professionals I have met in DRC during my several trips and all over the world, who put themselves in harm’s way for the people they serve.
Very often, they are the difference between life and death, between order and chaos.
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Which is why any society with too few health workers is operating with one hand tied behind its back. It simply cannot function the way it needs to.
WHO estimates that the world is facing a shortfall of 18 million health workers needed to achieve and sustain universal health coverage by 2030.
Half of that number – 9 million – is the projected shortfall in nurses and midwives.
That need is especially acute in low- and middle-income countries.
We can have the best medicines, the best diagnostics, the best hospitals and the best health insurance, but if we don’t have health workers delivering safe, effective, people-centred care, we don’t have a health system.
In 2016, the United Nations High-Level Commission on Health Employment and Economic Growth delivered a vital message: that health workers are not a cost, they’re an investment – an investment that pays a triple return for health, gender equality and economic growth.
But it’s not just the quantity of investments that matters – it’s what countries invest in that will make the biggest difference.
Yes, training more nurses and midwives is vital. But how they are educated and where they work is even more important.
Disease patterns and health needs are changing, and the health workforce must change with them.
All countries must transform the way care is delivered.
In the words of His Excellency Minister Gam Kim Yong, my friend and Minister of Health of Singapore, it is time to go beyond healthcare to health.
We must move from an emphasis on curative services delivered in major hospitals to an emphasis on services that promote health and prevent disease, delivered at the primary health care level.
Nurses and midwives are an essential part of that transformation.
It’s for that reason that I appointed Elizabeth Iro as WHO’s Chief Nurse, to lead this work.
And the launch of the Nursing Now campaign is also helping to raise the status and profile of nursing.
I would like to thank Lord Nigel Crisp and Professor Sheila Tlou for their leadership, and I’m delighted to see the campaign growing fast.
WHO fully supports the Nightingale Challenge to strengthen leadership of nurses and midwives and will do everything we can to make it a success.
The World Health Assembly has agreed that in 2020 we will celebrate the International Year of the Nurse and the Midwife, to honour the 200th anniversary of the birth of Florence Nightingale, and to celebrate the work of all our nurses and midwives. So it will be a time to pause and say thank you so much for your dedication and commitment, to all of you here and all over the world.
And as part of that celebration, we are also proposing that every country bring one nurse and one midwife to the World Health Assembly next year. The world must hear their voices and their stories. And we will also establish a recognition award for nurses and midwives, where every country and region is involved, along with ICN and Nursing Now. That will be an annual award ceremony for nurses and midwives.
WHO is now working on the first report on The State of the World’s Nursing, to present to the World Health Assembly.
This report will provide a “snapshot” of the global nursing workforce.
But this will not be a snapshot to put in a frame and admire. We hope it will be more like a photo of a house before a major renovation.
We hope that countries, regions and partners will use the data from this report to engage in policy dialogue and make evidence-based decisions on how and where to invest in the nursing workforce.
We cannot develop this report alone. We need your support to ensure contributions from every country, to make sure our snapshot is accurate and reliable and represents the world of nursing and midwives.
I also need your support on another matter.
In May next year, WHO will host the meeting of Government Chief Nurse and Midwifery Officers, alongside the ‘Triad’ meeting of National Nurse Associations, National Midwife Associations and the Chief Nurse and Midwifery Officers.
We need your support to ensure that every country is represented.
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My colleagues and friends,
We are on the threshold of a transformative moment in global health.
Together, we can ensure that nurses and midwives get the education, the training, the jobs, the conditions, the opportunities, the dignity and the respect they deserve.
But our cause is not only about celebrating and empowering nurses. It’s more than that. It’s about harnessing the power of nurses to achieve our vision for 2030, to achieve universal health coverage and to have a world which is healthier, safer, fairer for everyone.
That is the vision for which we’re working. And you have the power to make it happen.
Thank you all for your dedication, commitment and support.
I look forward to working with all of you now, during the year of nurse and midwife and for the next 10 years to realize the sustainable developmental goals and achieve universal health coverage.
Together we will promote health, keep the world safe, and serve the vulnerable.
I thank you.