Global healthcare expenditure is increasing, along with the numbers of older patients with multiple comorbidities, while the numbers of health workers are hugely decreasing, and many nursing and midwifery vacancies remain unfilled. With the World Health Organization declaring 2020 the Year of the Nurse and Midwife, and commencing the Nursing Now campaign with partners including the International Council of Nurses and the International Confederation of Midwives, has allowed these professions to unite, encourage advocacy and the call for global investment in nursing and midwifery. These actions will permit these professions to address universal health coverage, global inconsistencies of professional practice, and recruitment and retention. The Nightingale Challenge seeks to place early career nurses and midwives at the forefront of transformation, calling on employers worldwide to invest and provide nursing leadership development, and to become a key part of the solution to address the issues of providing universal health coverage, promoting gender equality and supporting economic growth. This will help place them at the heart of tackling 21st century health challenges.
The use of nurses in the provision of health and social care interventions to ex-offenders is a strategy, which could increase equity in access to health care, reduce reoffending and improve both the health and life chances of these individuals.
Background Investment in nursing and midwifery leadership and governance are key suggested approaches by the World Health Organization (WHO) Africa Regional Office to address the shortages of the nursing health workforce. However, there are few if any studies that have investigated the existence and operationalization of the nursing leadership and governance structures in Africa. This paper fills this gap by, providing an overview of nursing and midwifery leadership, governance structures, and instruments in Africa.MethodsWe conducted a descriptive cross-sectional study of the nursing and midwifery leadership ,structures and instruments in 16 African countries using quantitative methodology. Data was analyzed using SPSS IBM 21 statistical software. Data was summarized in frequencies and percentages and presented as tables and charts. ResultsOnly(9,56.25%) of the 16 countries included had retrievable evidence of all expected governance structures while (7, 43.75%) lacked one or more of the structures. A quarter (4, 25%) of the countries did not have a department of nursing and midwifery or chief nursing and midwifery officer at their Ministry of Health (MOH). The dominant gender representation across all the governance structures was female. Only Lesotho (1, 6.25%) had all expected nursing and midwifery governance instruments while the remaining (15, 93.75%) had either one or four of these instruments missing.ConclusionsThe lack of complete nursing and midwifery governance structures and instruments in various African countries is a matter of concern. Without these structures and instruments, the strategic direction and input of the nursing and midwifery profession cannot be maximized for the public good in relation to health outcomes. Addressing the existing gaps requires a multipronged approach with the need to strengthen regional collaboration, advocacy, creating awareness, and advancing nursing and midwifery leadership training to enable nursing and midwifery governance capacity development in Africa.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.