MATFLIX has joined the growing number of organisations celebrating the contribution of often under appreciated healthcare professionals by supporting the World Health Organisation’s Year of the Nurse and the Midwife.
2020 has been chosen to mark the 200th anniversary of the birth of Florence Nightingale. Considered the founder of modern nursing, she came to prominence while serving as a manager and trainer of nurses during the Crimean War, in which she organised care and improved sanitary conditions for wounded soldiers, pioneering statistical methods of analysis to reduce mortality rates. She would go on to produce a landmark study of maternal mortality from puerperal fever.
At the heart of the WHO campaign are three key messages:
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Strengthening nursing and midwifery to achieve health for all,
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Boost nursing and midwifery leadership and influence to improve health services, and
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Commit political will and funding to improve nursing and midwifery.
They have identified five areas for investment:
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Invest in more nurse-led and midwife-led services enabling nurses and midwives to work to their full potential,
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Employ more specialist nurses,
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Make midwives and nurses central to primary health care, providing services and supervising community health workers,
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Support nurses and midwives in health promotion and disease prevention, and
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Invest in nursing and midwifery leadership.
Inspired by the last of those, our friends at the Maternity & Midwifery Forum are using the YONM to support the campaign to get a Chief Midwifery Officer in every country. MATFLIX supports this campaign and believes that both midwives and mothers need and will benefit from this kind of decision-maker at the heart of the health service of every nation and that governments should invest in maternity leadership across the board. You can sign their petition now.
MATFLIX will be supporting a number of events and initiatives throughout YONM. Sign up to our mailing list to get more information.
