Reflections on International Nurses Day: Current status, issues, and the future of nursing in Indonesia

First, with the COVID-19 pandemic, nursing practice has become more challenging. The invisible disease agent has caused untimely deaths of many healthcare professionals, making nursing practice much harder (Chatterjee & Kagwe, 2020) and less attractive as a profession. As of March 2021, the Indonesian National Nurses Association reported that more than 15,000 nurses were infected with COVID-19 and 274 have passed away (Guritno, 2021). Improvements in regulations related to COVID-19 management in hospitals and other healthcare institutions were imposed, such as increasing supplies of personal protective equipment (PPE) and prioritizing benefits for healthcare workers regarding staffing, including the nurses. This prioritized frontline healthcare workers, including nurses, to receive vaccinations against
COVID-19