Megumi Teshima

Global health care has been shaken by the scars of the COVID-19 pandemic, natural disasters, climate change, conflict, and the economic instability caused by their effects. Therefore, the promotion of UHC is essential to protect people's health and ensure a healthy life in a sustainable manner. As the global voice of nursing, ICN is called upon to play a leading role in ensuring the quantity and quality of nurses that is essential for the promotion of UHC. As an ICN Board member, I would like to focus on the following three points.

1. Ensuring the Well-being of Nurses

The stability of nurses, which accounts for half of all health care workers, is essential to the promotion of UHC. It is urgent and important to ensure the well-being of nurses, promote retention, and manage human resources properly.

It is critical to provide opportunities gaining new knowledge and skills through regional seminars and online materials around the world to educate each nurse about the values of their own well-being and to develop the capacity of nurse managers. Pioneering initiatives and sharing of good practices have the potential to be leveraged more than ever by sharing them online. Along with these activities, ICN must work individually and collectively to improve the rights of nurses.

2. Securing and Retaining of Competent Nurses

In order to achieve UHC, it is necessary to secure human resources with competent nurses. The challenges that need to be addressed globally are to reflect the current state of practice in the content of education as well as to educate with appropriate educational approaches, and to enhance professional development. The estimated shortage of 4.5 million by 2030 will be exceeded if the generation that was unable to receive adequate clinical education due to the COVID-19 pandemic is not supported. Therefore, ICN must give support systematically for NNAs that they can remain committed and retain in the profession.

3. Promotion of Planetary Health

Climate change has come to have a significant impact on people's health, and global environmental challenges are now seen as human rights and social justice issues. In order to promote planetary health, each and every nurse is required to raise awareness and take action, such as reducing waste and decarbonizing. ICN must work to enable nurses to have a positive impact on individuals, organizations, and communities.

I am committed to promoting planetary health to ensure the sustainability of the planet where we live and to reduce the impact of climate change on human health.

In order to continue our activities as the global voice of nursing, it is important for ICN to establish a stable management system that does not overly depend on membership fee income. Based on my experience as a Board member of ICN and my involvement in the management of academic and other organizations, I will be actively involved in financial management and risk mitigation, and will work to strengthen the organization's structure so that it can make a sustainable contribution to nursing around the world.