Once a nurse, always a nurse by heart
Next year, 2025, is a remarkable for Finnish nurses, as we celebrate 100th anniversary of the founding of the Finnish Nurses Association. The International Council of Nurses (ICN) Congress will be held in Helsinki 9.-13.6.2025. The previous ICN Congress was in Helsinki 100 years ago! Thousands of nurses from all over the world will gather together under the theme: Nursing Power to Change the World! This is an exceptional event to meet many colleagues from different countries and cultures in Finland. It is our great pleasure to participate, discuss and share the burning topics of nursing.
We really need the power of nurses to change the world. Living in a time of global shortage of nurses, we need to put together the power to solve this urgent problem in health care. One used solution is to recruit international nurses from abroad. This has happened always; nurses have left their home countries to search for a better career, salary, education, and adventure. Currently, a big question is, how ethical is it to recruit nurses from a low-income country to a high-income country, which both are struggling with the same problem: a shortage of nurses. International Council of Nurses (ICN) have raised this concern with President Dr. Pamela Cipriano’s letter to G20 leaders for their meeting in November 2024 in Brazil. Dr Cipriano wrote in her open letter, “Without bold, collaborative resolutions to curb the depletion of nursing workforces in vulnerable nations, global healthcare access gaps will continue to widen, undermining the G20’s stated commitments to improving health equity.” An important initiative for the world’s top leaders.
Political decisions are often slow, and global consensus and statements are difficult to achieve, so while international recruitment continues, we at the universities and health care organizations can do a lot in practice to make the global recruitment humane and show our power to change the world. One example is our European Social Fund Plus (ESF+) funded project “An attractive multicultural work environment in the wellbeing services county of North Savo (TRACTION)” which is organized in 1.3.2024 – 30.6.2026 by the Department of Nursing Science, Faculty of Health Sciences with School of Humanities, Philosophical Faculty and Centre for Continuous Learning together with the Wellbeing Services County of North Savo. The project was created from an idea and need from nursing practice, and we researchers were ready to take the challenge to create the project to develop the multicultural work environment together with them. This is a very timely topic, more empirical knowledge and research are needed, even though several other projects have been implemented in Finland.
We, in the TRACTION project, aim to promote the integration of nurses with the international background into Finnish work communities. When a nurse from the different culture starts working in Finland, the work community and manager need a lot of support and knowledge of culturally sensitive topics. To address this need, it is important to react with increased continuous learning and work orientation, which are the focus of this project. The final purpose of the project is to produce tools and new operating models to support multicultural, multilingual, and multidisciplinary work communities. We have several work packages, and I am especially looking forward to the workshops where we will work together with multicultural work communities.
One key topic in ICN Congress is “Building a sustainable health workforce for all”. This topic can offer us different solutions or at least some tips to create sustainable work environments where all nurses today and tomorrow work with joy and passion. Once a nurse, always a nurse. My journey has gone through Registered Nurse at Heart Surgical ward in Meilahti, HUS, Nurse Manager at Kuopio University Hospital, and now to Professor at the Department of Nursing Science, University of Eastern Finland. Always nursing in my heart. Let’s meet in Helsinki, 9.-13.6.2025 and try to change the world with our power.
- Professor (Preventive Nursing Science), Head of Department of Nursing Science
- Responsible Leader of the Project: An attractive multicultural work environment in the wellbeing services county of North Savo (TRACTION)
- Member of Scientific Committee of ICN Congress 2025
