International Nurses Day 2022 - A voice to lead: invest in nursing and respect rights to secure global health

Nurses and midwives are at the forefront of immunisation education and delivery in Australia and globally as seen throughout the ongoing COVID-19 vaccination campaign. 

Each year, the month of May has two international days to acknowledge and celebrate the work of midwives and nurses: International Day of the Midwife, celebrated on 5 May, and International Nurses Day (IND), celebrated on 12 May, the birthday of Florence Nightingale.

In 2022, the theme of International Nurses Day is Nurses: A Voice to Lead - Invest in nursing and respect rights to secure global health.

IND 2022 focuses on the need to invest in nursing and respect the rights of nurses to build resilient, high-quality health systems to meet the needs of individuals and communities now and into the future.

The COVID-19 pandemic has demonstrated the invaluable contribution of nurses: from working on the frontline caring for COVID-19 patients, contributing to the public health response through testing and surveillance to now playing a pivotal role in the delivery of COVID-19 vaccines across Australia. In addition, our nurses continue to provide essential health services to the community.

At NCIRS, we recognise the work of all midwives and nurses who contribute every day to Australia’s strong immunisation program. We also acknowledge our passionate midwives and nurses (both past and present) who are involved in diverse work at NCIRS, some of which includes:

• providing specialised advice to clinicians, community and healthcare sector on the COVID-19 vaccination rollout
• contributing to the public health response for COVID-19 pandemic through research, including the COVID-19 in educational settings study, COVID-19 first few hundred study and serosurveillance for SARS-CoV-2
• providing specialised immunisation care and advice to clinicians and families through immunisation advice lines and a specialist immunisation clinic
• undertaking active hospital-based surveillance of vaccine preventable diseases and adverse events following immunisation through the Paediatric Active Enhanced Disease Surveillance (PAEDS) network
• providing leadership in and coordination of vaccine-related clinical research to address gaps in knowledge to inform Australia’s immunisation policy, particularly in the context of COVID-19
• supporting nurses in primary care settings on all aspects of immunisation programs in Australia through the Primary Health Networks (PHN) Immunisation Support Program.

Learn more about the International Nurses Day and how you can support your nursing colleagues here