May 12 – International Nurses Day

International Nurses Day is celebrated around the world every May 12, the anniversary of Florence Nightingale's birth.

In 2022, the theme for IND is Nurses: A Voice to Lead – Invest in nursing and respect rights to secure global health. #IND2022 focuses on the need to invest in nursing and respect the rights of nurses in order to build resilient, high quality health systems to meet the needs of individuals and communities now and into the future.

• While health workers represent less than 3% of the global population, they represented around 14% of COVID-19 cases. In some countries, the proportion can be as high as 35%.
• Healthcare workers, especially nursing staff, are also more likely to be exposed to offensive behaviours, including sexual harassment, than other professions. In the United States, rates of violence from clients against health-care workers were estimated to be 16 times higher than any other service profession.
• In the 2014-2016 Ebola outbreak in West Africa, the risk of infection among health workers was 32 times higher than in the general adult population.
• Due to existing nursing shortages, the ageing of the nursing workforce and the growing COVID-19 effect, ICN estimates up to 13 million nurses will be needed to fill the global nurse shortage gap in the future.

(ICN, 2022)

More information:
International Council of Nurses