May 12. International Nursing Day
This day is celebrated with the aim of paying tribute to a profession so essential to humanity as well as commemorating the birth, more than 200 years ago, of who would be considered the first professional nurse in history, Florence Nightingale.
Nursing, consolidated on the basis of dedication, vindication and the fight for rights mainly of women, is today an applied science that not only constitutes one of the main branches of health sciences, but also the base of health systems around the world. A profession that works based on scientific evidence for the care and improvement of the health of our citizens.
With the tragic weeks that have been experienced in various countries by the current health crisis, nurses have demonstrated with the performance of their profession, the essential service that they render to society while their work watches over the fight for human rights and to health. However, in the face of the adversity of the current context, discourses have emerged in politics and the media, referring to the heroism of the proffesion. Something to which many nurses have responded as nothing else than “their job”, which requires more than nice words.
In this line, decent conditions are demanded for the performance of the profession and where, under crisis situations such as the current one, their lives are not put at risk for lack of protective equipment, something that sadly has been happening in most countries with the highest number of infections. On a day like this, a profession is vindicated which, by its consolidation through the fight for labor and social rights and the so valuable contribution to humanity, contributes not only to the care and improvement of our health but also to the protection and promotion of the most fundamental human rights.