NEW YORK NURSE: July/August 2007
by Nancy Webber
More than 3,800 registered nurses from 109 countries gathered in Yokohama, Japan, in May for the International Council of Nurses (ICN) Conference. For the NYSNA members who attended, it was an experience they will never forget.
The conference, which is held every four years, aimed to “highlight the realities of nursing practice and acknowledge nurses’ expertise in dealing with the unexpected.”
The educational sessions covered the challenges that nurses face across the world and within their workplaces. The first were addressed in presentations on pandemics (avian flu and SARS), malaria, and international nurse migration. The second dealt with topics such as workplace safety and medical errors. All sessions were translated into English, French, and Spanish.
“This was a very moving and emotional experience for me,” said NYSNA President Verlia Brown. “I met and networked with nurses from all over the world.” Other NYSNA members at the five-day event included Diana Mason, Madeline Naegle, Winnie Kennedy, and Beverly Malone. Malone is head of the National League for Nursing, based in New York.
The Council of National Representatives, the ICN’s governing body, met during the conference to discuss issues that affect nurses around the world. A major topic of concern was the migration of nurses from developing countries to industrialized nations. Nurses are being recruited to immigrate to countries that can pay them much higher salaries, to the detriment of patient care in their homelands.
The treatment of foreign nurses also was discussed. The case of the “Sentosa” nurses, which is well-known in the Philippines and throughout the international nursing community, was a case in point. The nurses were brought to New York by a recruiting agency that failed to abide by the terms of their contracts. When the RNs left their jobs, they were faced with a civil suit and criminal charges.
Brown said she took the microphone to urge the ICN to make an effort to inform all nurses about the benefits of union membership in protecting nurses’ rights. She also met with the Filipino delegation to discuss the case, which is pending in Suffolk County Court.
Another hot issue was the plight of five Bulgarian nurses and a Palestinian doctor who have been imprisoned in Libya since 1999. They were sentenced to death by firing squad for allegedly infecting infants with HIV, despite expert testimony that the children had been infected before the nurses arrived. The ICN and many other nursing organizations, including NYSNA, contacted the Libyan government to demand the health providers’ release. Two months after the ICN conference, on July 24, the “Benghazi 6” were released from prison after the families of the 438 infected children were paid compensation.
Along with the business aspects of the conference, nurses from New York attended a number of ceremonial events and dinners. “The Japanese Nurses Association put on a very lovely reception with traditional food, music, and dancing,” Brown said. The guest of honor was Princess Muna Al-Hussein of Jordan, who is the World Health Organization Patron for Nursing and Midwifery in the eastern Mediterranean region.
“This was a rare opportunity to learn about other cultures,” said Kennedy. “We experienced our differences but also our similarities as registered nurses.”