Nursing is the largest profession in the health workforce worldwide. Nurses’ knowledge and practices are essential for promoting and recovering health, from birth to death.
Studies from around the world have shown that Nursing is a high-risk profession due to its exposure to social and environmental risk factors that can threaten nurses’ health, although many countries fail to recognize this situation.
These challenging times have brought to light not only the social value of Nursing, but also the poor, unsafe working conditions that threaten the health and lives of nurses.
The current efforts to address the COVID-19 pandemic that has been sweeping the world have brought out the tension that exists between the need for nursing care and the social value (or lack thereof) attributed to nursing professionals. Even without material resources and overworked and underpaid, many nurses have become infected while trying to save lives from this pandemic that has already infected or killed thousands of professionals worldwide.
Based on scientific evidence and social observation, Nurses from Portugal, Brazil, Spain, Chile, and Colombia, attending the virtual 2nd International Congress of Occupational Health Nursing, in Coimbra, Portugal, call on the community to recognize the value of Nursing;
the employers to provide us with suitable working conditions, namely adequate Personal Protective Equipment (PPE), healthy and safe work environments, and fair wages, and the governing bodies to include us as participants, with voice and vote, in decision-making bodies responsible for policy-making and goal-setting related to the workers’ health.
26 June 2020
