Focusing on the Global Nursing Workforce for International Nurses Day and Beyond
For registered nurse Andrés de Juan Ortega, there’s one big message for International Nurses Day 2026: we need to find ways to address shortages in the global health care workforce.
As a nursing PhD candidate at the Universitat de Barcelona in Spain, Andrés is doing his part. His research focuses on recruitment and retention of new nurses. Everything related to attracting new nurses to the field and keeping them there — from nursing-focused health policy and health care management to nursing leadership training and research support to global health policy to support health workers — is of interest in his quest to find solutions.
“We are really facing this crisis around the world,” he says. “Not just nurses but also doctors in different medical specialties and other health services. And not just in Europe but everywhere. “
Elevating Nurse Voices Through the Nursing Now Challenge
Although he works bedside at the Hospital Clinic de Barcelona and is finishing his thesis, Andrés is also doing what he can to create solutions. In the Nursing Now Challenge he serves now as an Advisory Board Member and Challengers’ Committee Global Lead, focusing on organisational member engagement. Prior to that, he was one of the European Regional Hub Leads. He also hosts, from time to time, episodes of the Nursing Now Challenge’s international podcast “Grassroots.”
“The main goal of the podcast is to promote the work of the nurses, student nurses, and midwives, to create a place where they can share it internationally and build interest,” he says. “It’s nurses talking to nurses and gives everyone an opportunity to shine.”
Connecting Leadership, Policy and Frontline Experience
In all his work, he is seeing the impact of a shortage of nurses and health care workers. He recently returned from Mahanje, a small village in Tanzania, where he volunteered as a health care worker in a local dispensary.
“I stayed there for a month, and I saw, in person, the problem of not having enough nurses. I met a nurse who lived there but left, because there weren’t enough jobs,” he says. “That is a big cross-cultural problem, because cancer care, vaccination, nothing in health care can be done if there is no workforce.”
