The Global Nursing Crisis

Normative Statement Referencing WHO and ILO Frameworks on the Global Nursing Crisis

Madam / Mr. President,
Distinguished delegates,
Representatives of Member States and international organizations:

Recent developments in New York City, where nearly 16,000 nurses from five hospitals are considering collective action, must be understood within the context of a global structural crisis in the nursing workforce, as formally recognized by the World Health Organization (WHO) and the International Labour Organization (ILO).

This situation is consistent with the challenges identified in the WHO Global Strategy on Human Resources for Health: Workforce 2030, adopted by the World Health Assembly through Resolution WHA69.19 (2016), which warns of critical health workforce shortages, inequitable working conditions, and insufficient investment in health personnel worldwide.

The crisis affects health systems in high-, middle-, and low-income countries alike, and is particularly acute in Latin America and the Caribbean, where persistent challenges include:

• precarious, informal, and unstable employment arrangements, contrary to the principles of decent work;

• chronic workforce shortages and excessive workloads, undermining safe staffing and quality of care;

• increasing exposure to workplace violence and psychosocial risks, in violation of safe and healthy work standards;

• limited access to occupational health services and social protection;

• insufficient participation of nurses in health system governance and policy decision-making.

These conditions represent a failure to comply with international labor standards, including the ILO Nursing Personnel Convention, 1977 (No. 149), which calls for fair employment conditions, adequate staffing, and occupational safety for nursing personnel. They also conflict with the ILO Occupational Safety and Health Convention, 1981 (No. 155), the Promotional Framework for Occupational Safety and Health Convention, 2006 (No. 187), and the Violence and Harassment Convention, 2019 (No. 190).

Furthermore, these realities contradict the commitments reaffirmed by the World Health Assembly in Resolution WHA74.14 (2021), which urges Member States to protect, safeguard, and invest in the health and care workforce, recognizing that workforce wellbeing is essential to patient safety, health system resilience, and emergency preparedness.

In line with these international commitments, it is imperative that Member States, with the support of international organizations, take urgent, coordinated, and rights-based action to:

1. Institutionalize effective tripartite social dialogue mechanisms, in accordance with ILO conventions, ensuring meaningful participation of nursing professionals and their representative organizations.

2. Develop, implement, and monitor sustainable public employment policies in health, aligned with the WHO Workforce 2030 strategy and grounded in decent work, gender equity, and workforce retention.

3. Guarantee safe and healthy working environments, including comprehensive prevention of workplace violence and psychosocial risk management, in line with ILO standards.

4. Ensure strategic, sustained, and adequately financed investment in the health workforce, recognizing nursing as a cornerstone of Universal Health Coverage, health system resilience, and people-centered care.

Population health outcomes are inseparable from the conditions under which caregivers work.
Investing in nursing is not optional—it is a legal, ethical, and strategic obligation under existing WHO and ILO commitments.

Thank you very much.

Lic. Sandro Ortega
Nursing and Occupational Health Advocate