International Nurses Day 2021

Next Wednesday 12 May is our favourite day of the year—International Nurses Day!

To the 82,000+ strong Australian primary health care nurses—in general practice, aged care, community health, correctional health, school nursing, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander health, home visiting, PHN, mental health, sexual health, refugee health, child and maternal health, palliative care, specialist rooms, the nurse practitioners in primary care, nurses working rurally and remotely—we see you, we appreciate you, and we thank you for keeping us healthy and safe.

It's a hard job organizing a party, so we've listed some ideas below on how to get involved and celebrate International Nurses Day. 

Posters

Now, we’d like you to dust off your ego and promote yourself next Wednesday. We’ve made some posters for you to put up in your workplace so that you’re valued, visible, and respected, as per our Nurse2022 guidelines.

Check them out:

• General practice, specialist rooms, correctional health, community health
• Aged care 
• School
• Other

And after being inundated with requests, we also made a Zoom background version of these posters for all you nurse Zoomers.

Selfie competition

For those cheeky nurses, and boy do we know a few, we’ve got a competition lined up for you. And the prize… one free registration to our Conference Roadshow (save up to $699). Here’s what you need to do to go in the draw:

1. Post a selfie on your Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, or Twitter that reflects the caption: What I’d like to do to COVID...
2. Add the caption and hashtag #nursesdayAPNA into the post
3. Make sure you post it on 12 May

We’ll announce the winner in our Connect e-news on Monday 17 May, 2021. May the most ingenious selfie win.

A poem from one of your own

One of our long-time members, Julie Parmar, recently notified APNA of her retirement after 50 years of nursing. Julie felt compelled to sit down, reflect on her career, and write this poem. It’s a real tearjerker and we couldn’t not share it with you. We’ve posted it to our APNA Instagram—feel free to share it on yours.

Morning/afternoon tea

We'll be hosting a morning tea at APNA HQ next Wednesday and celebrating our very own nursing staff. Apparently there's whispers of a potential love song dedications activity planned. We'll keep you posted on our Facebook page on what unfolds. 

We highly recommend, if you can, to host your own morning or afternoon tea.

We look forward to celebrating International Nurses Day with you!