Grace Jaccarini, coordinator for nursing/midwifery studies, and Roberta Sammut, coordinator for nursing/midwifery curricula at IHC, together with others, discussed with IAHC members, Patrick Dean and Kathryn Vigen (a past Fulbright Scholar to Malta to co-found Maltese nursing undergraduate education), ideas for sponsorship and underwriting the conference.

The event will partly focus on the history of caring for human life, as exemplified by the Knights of St. John of Jerusalem, and the establishment of one of the world’s first hospitals. This conference will also include a theme of gender inclusiveness in nursing as a way to recognize the perspective of women and men as caring nurses.

Five hundred nurses, and members of related disciplines, are expected to attend from approximately 20 countries, including Iran and Pakistan.
Ideas discussed at today’s meeting included garnering support from the Institute of Health Care at the University of Malta, health administration in the Maltese government at a future date, and business enterprises sympathetic to the ideals of the IAHC non-profit organization.

Having just returned from the 2006 IAHC conference in Fremantle, Western Australia, Dean said that a special appeal will be made to Maltese nurses living in Australia to attend this event in their home country. “There are Maltese nurses in many parts of the world, and they will be asked to invite their international colleagues to accompany them to Malta in 2009,” Dean said.

The purpose of the International Association for Human Caring is to globally research, educate and practice the art and science of human caring in healthcare, the environment, and in society at large. The organization was founded almost 30 years ago by nursing leaders in the USA and has annual conferences throughout the world.

Professor John Rizzo Naudi, Chairman of the IHC Board outside the IHC with the group of nurses after the discussion. From top left Mr. Jesmond Sharples, Director Nursing Services, Mr. Martin Ward, Coordinator Mental Health Nursing, Katherine Vigan, Grace Jaccarini, Helen Muscat, Roberta Sammut and Patrick Dean (University of Minnesota)