Call to action for advocacy of immigrant nurses during COVID‐19 pandemic

Abstract

The increase in the migration of nurses has a global effect on the healthcare system (Li, Nie, & Li, 2014). Immigrant nurses are essential team players of the global nursing workforce and play a vital role in improving the global healthcare system and providing culturally sensitive care. According to Trines (2018), the global immigrant population of nurses is 15.2% in the UK, 23.3% in Australia, 26.7% in New Zealand, 18.7% in Switzerland, and 7.7% in Canada. Patel, Ly, Hicks, and Jena (2018) determined that 1.3% to 23.1% Registered Nurses, Nurse Practitioners, Licensed Practice Nurses, and nursing aids in the US are immigrants (non-US born and non-US citizens). Possibly, the actual number of immigrant nurses in the developed countries cannot be estimated accurately because many of these nurses have not obtained the practicing license and are working as personal care attendants, home, and developmental support workers. Despite the nature and setting of their jobs, immigrant nurses are playing a critical role during the COVID-19 pandemic in hospitals and home care settings and mitigating the global shortage of nurses in countries with a higher burden of COVID-19 (Griswold & Salmon, 2020; Zallman, Finnegan, Himmelstein, Touw, & Woolhandler, 2019). We received a message from one of the immigrant nurses working as a frontline care provider in the most stricken city in the US. She said, "COVID-19 is all over in our hospital. Many staff nurses are positive, if asymptomatic, in 72 hr- back to work. No more quarantine for 14 days”. Such experiences of both immigrant and non-immigrant nurses may not be uncommon during this public health crisis as all the nurses are working in high-risk environments without adequate personal protective equipment (Bagnasco, Zanini, Hayter, Catania, & Sasso, 2020). The safety of nurses in hospital and community settings is one of the major concerns for all the governments (Choi, Jeffers, & Logsdon, 2020) and measures have been taken to offer them compensations and additional rights during this pandemic. Nevertheless, arguably, the respect and rights that immigrant nurses receive may be much less than the non-immigrant nurses. Therefore, in this editorial, we intend to iterate a call to action to advocate for the rights and to help immigrant nurses with transition and registration.