Nurses play a vital role on the front lines of the novel coronavirus(冠状病毒)pandemic. But a shortage of these essential health care workers could pose challenges in countries dealing with a growing number of COVID-19 cases.
"One of the lessons I hope the world learns from COVID-19 is that we must invest in nurses ," said World Health Organization Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus during a speech Tuesday in celebration of World Health Day.
WHO's new "State of the World's Nursing 2020" report has identified a global shortage of 5.9 million nurses. Many of those gaps are found in Africa, Southeast Asia, the Eastern Mediterranean, and parts of Latin America.
Among regions of the world, the Americas have the highest density of nurses at 83.4 per 10,000 people, followed by Europe with 79.3 nurses per 10,000 people. In contrast, there are 8.7 nurses per 10,000 people in Africa, 15.6 nurses per 10,000 people in the Eastern Mediterranean region, 16.5 nurses per 10,000 people in Southeast Asia, and 36 nurses per 10,000 people in the Western Pacific.
But there are also differences within regions. In the Americas, for example, countries such as Brazil, Canada, Chile, and the US have a higher density of nurses at close to or over 100 per 10,000 people, distorting the regional average. Many of the neighboring countries in the region have less than 50 nurses per 10,000 people. In Haiti, there are only 3.8 nurses per 10,000 people.
When based on country income, data in the report shows an unsurprising trend: The higher the income, the higher the nursing density. In low-income countries, the average density of nurses is 9.1 per 10,000 people, while the figure for high-income countries is 107.7 per 10,000 people.
But training more nurses won't solve the problem, said Dr. Giorgio Cometto, WHO coordinator on human resources for health policies and standards.
"If the country lacks the economic capacity to employ them or to create economic opportunities for them to work as nurses ... training more nurses can just go into the direction of making labor market imbalances, resulting in unemployment among nurses. And that's a huge wastage of human capital as well as financial resources," Cometto said.
The key is balancing training with the creation of employment opportunities in rural areas where there are known health worker shortages.
That may be easier said than done, especially among countries that are suffering from chronic or complex emergencies, in active conflict, or struggling in the wake of conflict. But in these settings, the international aid community can arrange its assistance with national priorities and covering recurrent costs, such as salaries, within a specified period of time, Cometto said.
4. How many nurses are needed according to WHO's new" State of the World 's Nursing 2020" report?
A.6 million. | B.8.7Million. |
C.3.8 Million. | D.5.9Million. |
5. From the figures in the passage , where are nurses most needed?
A.Africa. | B.Haiti. |
C.Eastern Mediterranean region. | D.Southeast Asia. |
6. Based on the country income what does the data in the report show?
A.The higher the income ,the more nurses are. |
B.The higher the income,the more doctors are. |
C.The lower the income ,the more doctors are. |
D.The lower the income, the more nurses are. |
7. From what Cometto said, we know that___.
A.It is easy to solve the problem of shortage of nurses. |
B.It is not easy to solve the problem of shortage of nurses. |
C.Training more nurses is a way to solve the problem. |
D.The international aid community can arrange its assistance all the time. |