Be the first to comment!Nurses a Voice to Lead: Health is a human right – Parliamentary motion
 Email item
|  Print item
|
|
Nurses’ Day is celebrated annually on the 12th of May by the International Council of Nurses (ICN) – the anniversary of Florence Nightingale’s birthday, and it also marks the contribution of nurses to society.
This year’s theme is ‘Nurses a Voice to Lead: Health is a human right.’ The right to the highest attainable standard of health is recognised in the constitution of many countries and numerous binding international human rights treaties.
In a statement today, the Department of Nursing, at Faculty of Health Sciences within the University of Malta, has said that it will commemorate International Nurses’ Day 2018, by drafting a parliamentary motion regarding the role of the nurse in Malta in addressing health as a human right.
The Department said that the motion will be presented by Dr Roberta Sammut, Head of Department of Nursing, Dean Faculty of Health Sciences. This will be discussed during a debate among a number of student and qualified nurses and Members of Parliament.
The debate will be take place at the Chamber of the Parliament of Malta in Valletta on the 10th of May at 10am. Mario Galea, a qualified nurse, will lead the debate which will be chaired by the Speaker, Dr. A. Farrugia.
The Department asked “what does, the right to health, mean to different individuals, to different communities, to different groups in a population? Universal Health Coverage (UHC) necessitates placing the health and wellbeing of all individuals and all communities at the centre of the health system and of the economic development of the country (ICN, 2018).”
It added that, “as policy makers grapple with this problem, nurses have an indispensable role to play in answering this question. Nurses are believed to have a central role to play towards ensuring health is achieved by all.”
“Nurses act as dual agents, or may be said to have a dual role, in health care systems vis-a-vis honouring the contention/statement health as a human right.”
The speakers in the debate will include Dr. Anthony Scerri, Mr Kevin Gafa’, Ms Vanessa Mifsud, Ms Antoinette Attard, Ms Lucyanne Ragab, Ms Marika Podda Connor, Ms Amy Zahra Camilleri and Ms Maria Navarro.
File photograph
