Your children’s health, your health, everyone’s health is at risk. Each year, we gratefully celebrate International Nurses Week around May 12, the birthday of Florence Nightingale. But now the world needs more than a few days of flowers, cake and ice cream. We must accomplish something far larger and more sustaining to ensure and improve public health – everywhere, every day. Nursing shortages are now critical in the U.S. and other developed nations and epidemic worldwide. The shortage is adversely affecting health and well-being across the globe. A recent issue of Health and Medicine warned: ‘In communities across the country, the nursing shortage has become so severe that it threatens patient care and safety, health care costs and patient outcomes.’ The 59th World Health Report called attention to the crisis for the first time, noting that greater commitment to strengthen nursing and midwifery – 80 percent of the world’s health care workforce – is a global necessity. ‘Overcoming this crisis will require exceptional advocacy and leadership. … Addressing the magnitude of issues is not something any one organization can do alone,’ said Alan Gibbs, chairman of the Burdett Trust for Nursing, and Dr. Hiroko Minami, […]