COVID-19: Nursing challenges into the future

Abstract

The COVID-19 pandemic continues to place countries and health care systems under stress, with rising morbidity and mortality around the world. Nurses have been and will continue to be under stress to care for patients and contain the infection. Against a backdrop of serious challenges, including shortages of equipment and other resources, threats to their health, overwhelming patient morbidity and mortality, nurses have risen to the challenge of caring during the pandemic. However, as second and third waves of the pandemic sweep around the world the challenges of caring are rising. The pace of change in health care is unprecedented so clinical and community nurses and nurse educators have had to adapt and change the way they work, against a backdrop of nursing shortages. Now more than ever it is vital that nurses and nurse leaders lend their voices, experience and knowledge to policy making and advocate for greater investment in nursing and health care to protect the public and themselves.