Nightingale Declaration for Our Healthy World

Please sign the Nightingale Declaration for Our Healthy World at ­ ­http://www.nightingaledeclaration.net.

Each year, we gratefully celebrate International Nurses Week around May 12, the birthday of Florence Nightingale (1820-1910). At this time in human history, however, the world needs much more than celebration.

Nursing shortages in the U.S. and other developed nations are now critical—epidemic, worldwide. The problem is serious, complex and impacting health and well-being across the globe. Nurses and allied healthcare providers—recognized as the ‘arms and legs’ of healthcare as well as the ‘heart and soul’ of healthcare implementation—need your help.

Overcoming this crisis will require exceptional advocacy and leadership. To that end, the Nightingale Initiative for Global Health (NIGH) is engaging in interdisciplinary dialogues for partnership. We are collaborating with nurses, midwives, related professionals and allied healthcare providers and other concerned citizens throughout the world. With focus on connection rather than specialization, NIGH is building a diverse and committed global network for addressing this challenge and implementing our objectives for education, empowerment and support during the upcoming decade.

By accessing the NIGH website at http://www.nightingaledeclaration.net and signing the Nightingale Declaration for Our Healthy World, you will join over 18,500 citizens from 86 countries in answering this call.

Why this Declaration? Signatures representing all 192 Member States of the United Nations will lay the foundation for accomplishing NIGH’s proposed adoption of two United Nations Resolutions by the 2008 UN General Assembly declaring 2010: International Year of the Nurse and 2011-2020: United Nations Decade for a Healthy World.

With these proposed UN Resolutions bringing visibility, recognition and value to nurses and allied health care providers, this action not only empowers them, but raises public awareness as to the crucial connection between empowered nurses and allied healthcare workers and the health of people everywhere.

In 1893, Florence Nightingale wrote: “Health is not only to be well, but to use well every power we have.”

Standing alongside Nightingale, each of us has an opportunity—right now—to use our power to make a difference. For the sake of our own health, our children’s health and the world’s health please join us by taking this first critical step and signing the Nightingale Declaration for Our Healthy World!

Barbara Dossey, PhD, RN, AHN-BC, FAANInternational Co-Director, Nightingale Initiativefor Global Health
www.nightingaledeclaration.net