By Dr. Schola Matovu: Nurse Scientist, Professor & Global Health Scholar | Gerontology | Caregiving | Advancing Nursing Leadership & Global Learning]May 21, 2026
A Dream in Geneva: Listening, Learning, and Speaking for the Invisible Caregivers Holding Our Health Systems Together
There are moments in a professional journey that feel both deeply personal and profoundly global.
Attending the 79th World Health Assembly (WHA79) in Geneva was one of those moments—a dream realized, and a powerful reminder that lived experience belongs at the global policy table.
As a nurse, researcher, and founder of the Nurse-to-Nurse Global Initiative, I arrived in Geneva carrying more than a professional title. I carried stories—of nurses working in overstretched systems, and of grandmothers in Uganda and Utah quietly raising grandchildren, often without recognition in health or social protection systems.
🌿 Between Lived Experience and Global Policy
Across side events, formal sessions, and meaningful hallway conversations, one truth stood out:
Health systems are not only built in ministries and boardrooms—they are sustained in homes.
Yet the caregivers who anchor those homes, particularly grandmothers providing daily care, remain largely invisible in workforce planning and Universal Health Coverage strategies. This is not just a social oversight—it is a systems gap.
🧭 Learning at the Global Table
WHA79 created space for critical dialogue on:
- Nursing and midwifery leadership
- Workforce wellbeing beyond individual resilience
- System-level thinking in health workforce design
- The future of care in interconnected global systems
The global conversation is clearly shifting—from a narrow focus on resilience toward leadership, culture, and system responsibility.
Still, one essential layer remains missing: the informal caregiving workforce quietly absorbing system pressures every day.
👵 The Invisible Workforce Behind Health Systems
My research across Uganda and Utah reveals a consistent pattern:
when hospital-to-home transitions are poorly supported, grandmothers often become primary caregivers—without training, guidance, or system integration.
The consequences are predictable:
- complications at home
- preventable hospital readmissions
- increased strain on already burdened health workers
This is not a separate issue. It is part of the same system.
🔗 Implications for Nursing and Global Health Leadership
This is where nursing leadership is critical.
Through the Nurse-to-Nurse Global Initiative, my work focuses on strengthening leadership as more than clinical expertise. It includes:
- systems thinking
- advocacy capacity
- global learning across contexts
- community partnership building
Because strengthening health systems requires seeing—and designing for—the full ecosystem of care.
🌍 A Reflection from Geneva
Some moments in Geneva were especially meaningful.
To be invited to the International Council of Nurses luncheon by its CEO, Mr. Howard Catton, and to have the opportunity to exchange with ICN President, Dr. Serrano, WHO’s Chief Nursing Officer Amelia Tuipulotu, and the remarkable ICN team who are lifting our profession at the global level, was truly an honor. I know—I was geeking out.
I leave Geneva not just with insight, but with responsibility.
If global health systems are becoming more intentional about workforce wellbeing and leadership, we must also ask:
Who is carrying the invisible weight of care outside formal systems?
And how do we finally design systems that recognize them?
💬 Closing Reflection
WHA79 reinforced an urgent truth:
We cannot fully strengthen health systems while leaving entire parts of the caregiving system unseen.