Every year, 25 November marks the International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women. On this day the EFN wants to remind everyone that frontline nurses, the majority of which are women, are frequently victims of violence and harassment, including verbal, emotional, and physical (including sexual).
Frontline nurses work in a very complex and challenging, high-pressure environment, where they provide life-saving patient care. Despite this, many nurses continue to be victims of gender based violence, and their perpetrators often go unpunished. This greatly contributes to further damaging the poor mental and physical well-being of frontline nurses, pushing them to leave the nursing profession, and the situation has only worsened with the COVID-19 pandemic.
The EFN has been working towards stopping this trend for many years now (see also the 2021 EFN report on gender and profession-based violence against nurses), as its consequences are damaging not only to the nurses’ physical and mental well-being, but also to the quality and accessibility of care for patients/citizens.
The International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women is thus an important occasion for the EFN to call on policy and decision makers at the EU and National level to take concrete and serious actions to stop violence against nurses and allied healthcare professionals by ensuring a safe work environment with a zero tolerance approach towards violence!