There is a need to strengthen clinical learning, both at community and hospital level, as part of health professions education reform.
Progress in the Region
Efforts are being made to manage the crisis related to shortage in nursing and midwifery staff in the Region while trying to improve the quality of education of nursing and allied personnel.
South Sudan: development of nursing and allied health resources and strengthening the capabilities of existing nursing, midwifery and allied health teachers.
Somalia: strengthening the nursing schools in three zones to enable them to produce nurses.
Djibouti, Iraq, Syrian Arab Republic, Sudan and Yemen: improvement of pre-service nursing and allied health education.
Tunisia: strengthening the newly established university-level nursing education programme through a twinning mechanism with a nursing faculty in Lebanon.
Jordan and Oman: development of a national plan for nursing human resources.
Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates: implementation of the fifth cycle of the leadership and management training programme developed by the International Council of Nurses through the national trainers who have been prepared in the first cycle of the programme with support from WHO.
Lebanon: reviewing and updating the nursing law.
Syrian Arab Republic: development of the community and primary health care nursing services and education continued in the north-eastern region, which has the lowest health indicators in the country. Support was also provided to the recently established nursing faculties at the universities in the country. In addition, nurses’ job descriptions and a national career structure for nursing were developed.
Yemen: development of job descriptions for all levels of nurses and midwives. Support was also provided to establish a proper nursing documentation process as part of the Patient Safety Friendly Hospital Initiative.
Pakistan: mapping of all institutes preparing nurses and midwives. The purpose of this exercise was to identify the gaps and areas of need to proceed with the educational reform process.
Technical support was provided to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) in the nursing field, based on the regional nursing and midwifery strategic plan previously developed for improving UNRWA nursing and midwifery services.
