Let 2021 be the year that the collective voices of nurses and midwives enact real systemic change.

As we leave behind 2020, the International year of the Nurse and the Midwife, the year that was intended to highlight and celebrate the work of nurses and midwives but which ended up turning the world on its head, let’s look to the possibilities of 2021.

In Australia, 2020 started with bushfires that raged across the country. Not long after we were hit by the COVID-19 pandemic, the likes of which had never seen before. The extraordinary efforts of many, none more impressive than those of nurses and midwives, saw the pandemic effectively contained by the end of 2020 and the country’s focus turn to recovery.

Although not as the original script for 2020 intended, the pandemic thrust the work of nurses and midwives into the public’s consciousness in a way that had not previously existed. The public realised that when faced with a truly devastating health crisis, it is nurses, midwives and other essential workers who will pull us all through.

Around the globe, this led to an outpouring of gratitude and appreciation for nurses and midwives and their compassion, professionalism and courage, which seemed exceptional but which are actually the core features of our professions.

Although welcome, much more than one year’s appreciation and gratitude from the community is needed. Nurses and midwives must be truly recognised and valued.

This means that nurses and midwives must be at the key decision-making tables, they must be included in the development of health care policy and enabled to work to their full scope of practice.

It means ensuring safe workplaces and working conditions, including safe staffing and workloads and decent pay and conditions, across all sectors.

And where this is most critically needed, as the pandemic has just shown us, is in aged care.

The Aged Care Royal Commission hands down its final report and recommendations at the end of February, and to this end we will continue to speak out and lobby for meaningful and timely change on safe staffing levels, appropriate skill mixes and transparency of funding. We invite all nurses, midwives, care-workers, organisations and the community to join us in the campaign to ensure we finally fix aged care.

Let 2021 be the year that the collective voices of nurses and midwives enact real systemic change.