Welcome to Episode #10 of Contain This, brought to you by the Indo-Pacific Centre for Health Security and hosted by Adam Craig. On the episode we have Elizabeth Iro - Chief Nursing Officer, World Health Organisation and Michele Rumsey - Director, World Health Organisation Collaborating Centre for Nursing, Midwifery & Health Development at University of Technology Sydney.Elizabeth, a Cook Islander, is the Chief Nurse at the World Health Organisation in Geneva. Prior to joining the WHO, she served as the Secretary of Health in the Cook Islands and before that was the country’s Chief Nurse. In these roles she spearheaded health system reform with a focus on planning and workforce development. Nursing is in Elizabeth’s blood. In this episode she speaks passionately about the role nurses from around the globe are playing, under increasingly stressful conditions, to ensure health systems continue to function and health security for all is achieved.Michele, also started her career in nursing. She took this experience to the global stage and now as an academic, advises on international health care and policy in the areas of human resources for health, health system strengthening, capacity development, stakeholder participation and regulation. Michele is the Director of the WHO Collaborating Centre for Nursing, Midwifery and Health Development based at UTS. The Centre is the only one of its kind in the South Pacific. Under Michele’s leadership the Centre has carried out 50 projects in 25 countries. She was awarded the UTS Human Rights Award in 2014 for her work in the South Pacific.This episode celebrates 2020, The International Year of Nurses and Midwives. Elizabeth and Michele reflect on what this year means to the nursing profession, they talk about the challenges of being a nurse during a pandemic and propose actions that ought to be taken to address issues as broad as chronic work force shortages, achieving universal health coverage, gender inequity and the impacts of power imbalances in nursing and health care more broadly.For more information on the State of the World’s Nursing Report, click on the link belowhttps://www.who.int/publications/i/item/nursing-report-2020For more information on a WHO Report related to the nursing workforce recommended by the guests, please click on the link below:https://www.who.int/hrh/com-heeg/en/ For more information about the Indo-Pacific Centre for Health Security, visit our website https://indopacifichealthsecurity.dfat.gov.au. Connect with us on Twitter via @CentreHealthSec. We air an episode every fortnight so make sure you subscribe to receive our updates. Enjoy, Contain This Team

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“What did the council decide on item 42?” — answered with the speaker and the moment.

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