Margrieta Langins

Margrieta Langins is the nursing and midwifery policy advisor to the WHO Regional Office for Europe in Copenhagen, Denmark.

Maggie is a Latvian-born Canadian trained nurse. She has a bachelor’s degree from McGill University, a nursing degree from the University of Toronto and has completed a Masters of Public Health from the École des hautes études en santé publique in Paris. She is a Queen’s Nursing Institute fellow as well as a fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons of Ireland .

Over the course of her nursing career Maggie has worked in various settings in Canada – working in rural health, delivering services to the homeless and working several years as a pediatric nurse. She is a former fellow at the International Foundation for Integrated Care in Oxford and has more than 15 years of international experience. Her work at the WHO Regional Office for Europe has involved working at the crossroads between health and care workforce issues, long-term care service models, and primary health care.

Maggie is working hard to position nurses and midwives as integral in advancing progress towards Universal Health Coverage. Her three pronged agenda in working with Member States of the WHO European Region is to work with Member States to strengthen the nursing and midwifery professions to work to safely, to their full extent and hape health systems and services for the benefit of patients and communities. Maggie is passionate about improving social equality and economic well being for this profession. In December 2021, her team launched the Roadmap for implementing the Global Strategic Directions for Strengthening Nursing and Midwifery in the WHO European Region.

During her career, Maggie has worked in more than 20 countries across the WHO European Region.

Since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic she has been involved in rolling out guidance and support to countries to improve mental health and psychosocial support for the health and care workforce, strengthening long-term care services and maintaining essential health services during the pandemic.