By Pat Muccigrosso, contributor
March 10, 2010 - Wrapped around the centennial celebration of Florence Nightingale’s death, International Year of the Nurse 2010 was created to honor Nightingale’s legacy and to celebrate the more than 15 million nurses working around the world to improve their community’s health.
The brainchild of three organizations – the Nightingale Initiative for Global Health (NIGH), Sigma Theta Tau International (STTI), and the Florence Nightingale Museum (FNM) – this year-long global venture is rooted in Nightingale’s vision for what nursing can and should represent.
Barbara Dossey, RN, PhD, AHN-BD, FAAN, international co-director for the Nightingale Global Health Initiative, has partnered with several nursing organizations to plan for the International Year of the Nurse 2010.
“Nightingale was way ahead of her time,” said Barbara Dossey, RN, PhD, AHN-BD, FAAN, the international co-director for NIGH. “This woman is a multi-faceted genius and a respected social activist who had a major impact on nursing in the United States.”
Dossey, herself a nurse with 25 years of practice in critical and cardiovascular care, is the world’s foremost biographer of Florence Nightingale. She says plans for the International Year of the Nurse 2010 actually began several years ago.
“In the early 2000s, my colleague Deva-Marie Beck (co-director of NIGH) and I began to ask questions. How would Nightingale look at the problems today? How would she influence today’s leaders? How would she increase global public opinion to really make health a priority for everyone?”
Those questions quickly led the pair to a decision. They would create a global initiative and build an informational Web site where nurses could honor Nightingale and celebrate the nursing profession which keeps her legacy alive.
But they knew they needed help to pull it off.
“Knowing that it takes more than one organization to bring this about, we formed, with several other colleagues, the Nightingale Initiative for Global Health,” explained Dossey.
The team also got the Florence Nightingale Museum (FNM) in London involved, “...and we took our dream to Sigma Theta Tau,” said Dossey. “We were thrilled that they said they wanted to partner with us.”
Patricia E. Thompson, RN, EdD, FAAN, CEO of Sigma Theta Tau International, said participating in this initiative was a natural fit for the organization.
Sigma Theta Tau International, the nursing honor society, has close to 140,000 members working in 90 different countries around the world. For CEO Patricia E. Thompson, RN, EdD, FAAN, this initiative was a natural fit.
“Our mission is to improve the health of people, globally, through our members who are all nurses,” explained Thompson. “The 2010 International Year of the Nurse initiative is a way for us to celebrate what our members, as well as other nurses, do globally.”
Focused on the concept that personal actions can make a world of difference, the International Year of the Nurse 2010 does not tell nurses how to get involved or what to celebrate. “This is a collaborative, grass roots initiative,” said Dossey. “It’s looking at the work of nurses, honoring nurses’ voices and values and how they act as catalysts for achieving a healthy world. We are encouraging nurses and institutions to come up with a way they would like to celebrate and focus on those events.”
Not having a centrally-driven program or requiring attendance at conferences, events or seminars makes it much easier for nurses around the world to get involved, according to Thompson.
“When you look globally, you have very different cultural approaches, political approaches,” she explained. “So an initiative that might work in the United States might not be as appropriate in South Africa or Taiwan or someplace else.”
Although there are no rules for getting involved in the 2010 International Year of the Nurse initiative, organizers do offer a framework that nurses can use. “The eight United Nations Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) are our mission and our focus,” said Dossey.
“These MDGs, established to address the pressing needs of health worldwide, are all related to health and nurses.”
Three of the UN goals focus on childhood mortality, maternal health and HIV AIDs, TB, malaria and other diseases. “These are all related to health and nurses. The other five goals are also factors influencing health – hunger, poverty, education, empowerment and environmental sustainability,” said Dossey.
“These are globally accepted areas related to wellness and health care that need to be addressed,” added Thompson. “We just felt like the UN Millennium Goals were a way to help frame what people were reporting back.”
Nurses are invited to visit the International Year of the Nurse 2010 Web site to see what their peers around the world are doing and to share their own stories, ideas and inspirations about work they are already doing.
Events are already starting to crowd the Web site’s calendar, among them a celebration being held at The National Cathedral in Washington, D.C., on Sunday, April 25.
Dossey said that being part of this year-long celebration of nurses is easy. “Read the site, look at the MGDs, think about them in their own hospitals and communities and get involved.”
The UN Millennium Development Goals
2010 International Year of the Nurse, in recognition of the United Nations Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), seeks to recognize the contributions of nurses globally and to engage nurses in the promotion of world health. These eight international development goals were established at the UN Millennium Summit in 2000. Over 190 United Nations member states and at least 23 international organizations agreed to achieve these goals by the year 2015.
- Eradicate extreme poverty and hunger.
- Achieve universal primary education.
- Promote gender equality and empower women.
- Reduce child mortality.
- Improve maternal health.
- Combat HIV/AIDS, malaria and all communicable and non-communicable diseases.*
- Ensure environmental sustainability.
- Develop a global partnership for development.
*2010 International Year of the Nurse joins the worldwide call for including this language in MDG #6. Visit their Web site for more information.
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