Kai Tiaki: Nursing New Zealand articles from May 2006

Kai Tiaki: Nursing New Zealand archives from May 2006

Meeting nursing challenges in palliative care.(Editorial)
May 1, 2006... The care of the dying was once the domain of hospices and their community teams, and the patients were predominantly those with terminal cancer. However, the face of palliative care in New Zealand has changed markedly over the past decade, with...

Council creates barriers to practice.(LETTERS: TELL US WHAT YOU THINK)(Letter to the editor)
May 1, 2006... In February, I was one of the five percent of nurses audited by the Nursing Council during renewal of my annual practising certificate (APC). After spending a full day of my own time preparing the required documentation, I duly sent it away. It...

'Bureaucratic nonsense' kills enthusiasm.(LETTERS: TELL US WHAT YOU THINK)(Letter to the editor)
May 1, 2006... I work in a fairly busy emergency department (ED) and was one of the nurses "randomly" selected for a Nursing Council audit. I want to say how disillusioning, disheartening and degrading this process has been, and what a total farce. The...

Unseemly preoccupation with paperwork.(LETTERS: TELL US WHAT YOU THINK)(Letter to the editor)
May 1, 2006... Your correspondent, Sam Mojel, whose letter "Paperwork undermines work satisfaction" was published in the February issue of Kai Tiaki Nursing New Zealand (p5), struck a chord with me and many of my colleagues. I find a particular irony in...

Don't give nurses more stress.(LETTERS: TELL US WHAT YOU THINK)(Letter to the editor)
May 1, 2006... I write in support of nurses and letters like the one published last month "Competence demands 'over the top" by Barbara Suddaby, p5. My wife has been a nurse for over 25 years and works in the intensive care unit (ICU) of our local hospital....

GP debates midwifery costs.(LETTERS: TELL US WHAT YOU THINK)(Letter to the editor)
May 1, 2006... There are a number of matters in Teresa O'Connor's news focus article "Midwifery--a workforce under pressure", published last month (p18-19), which invite response. In relation to the recent manslaughter case against Dunedin midwife...

In praise of hospital-trained nurses.(LETTERS: TELL US WHAT YOU THINK)(Letter to the editor)
May 1, 2006... I am a nursing student who is concerned about the horizontal violence being perpetrated against some of my more senior colleagues. These are the registered nurses (RNs) who trained in hospitals and who have not gone on to complete their...

Trading on ambiguity.(LETTERS: TELL US WHAT YOU THINK)(Letter to the editor)
May 1, 2006... I refer to the article published in your February issue entitled "Preparing for cultural safety assessment" by nursing lecturers Margaret Hughes and Tony Farrow (p12-14). It is a pity an artificial distinction that reties on ambiguity is...

Nurse raters needed for online service.(LETTERS: TELL US WHAT YOU THINK)(Letter to the editor)
May 1, 2006... Greetings from the Health Information Research Unit at Canada's McMaster University, the editorial office for Evidence-Based Nursing and other evidence-based resources. bmjupdates+ is a free service that provides a searchable database of...

Presenting at international conferences.(LETTERS: TELL US WHAT YOU THINK)(Letter to the editor)
May 1, 2006... We would like to encourage nurses who are completing postgraduate studies to consider sharing their work at both national and international conferences. Late East year, I was one of three senior tutors from the Western Institute of...

The president comments.(LETTERS: TELL US WHAT YOU THINK)
May 1, 2006... You have all heard the saying "to grow old gracefully" and I am sure that is what we would all like to do. Unfortunately life doesn't always treat us how we would like to be treated. As we age, our body can be subjected to a number of...

A Maori perspective on death and dying.(LETTERS: TELL US WHAT YOU THINK)
May 1, 2006... Although I was trained as a psychopaedic nurse and worked mainly in intellectual disability and intellectual disability education before moving into other roles, I also had experience working in palliative care, a field I stumbled into. ...

NZNO staff changes.(LETTERS: TELL US WHAT YOU THINK)
May 1, 2006... Clinical educator at MidCentral District Health Board's (DHB) emergency department, Charlotte Thompson, has been appointed an NZNO professional nursing adviser (PNA), replacing Chris Millar who leaves NZNO on May 26. Millar worked as a PNA for...

Extra funding needed for pay parity.(NEWS AND EVENTS)
May 1, 2006... NZNO wants primary health care (PHC) employers to take part in a collaborative approach to Government for the additional funding needed --estimated at $22.5 million--to deliver pay parity in the sector. "NZNO has been very proactive with its...

Seeing Red Over pay parity.(NEWS AND EVENTS)(Brief article)
May 1, 2006... Nurses, community health workers and others in the primary health care (PHC) workforce "saw red" on May 1 over the pay gap between them and their counterparts in public hospitals. NZNO members in GP surgeries, hearth clinics, Maori and iwi...

Hodgson rejects 'crisis' in health.(NEWS AND EVENTS)
May 1, 2006... In his first major speech since becoming Health Minister, Pete Hodgson has attacked the purveyors of the "crisis syndrome" in health and listed the achievements of the Government. These included the mass meningococcal immunisation campaign, a...

Nurse-initiated discharge underway at Christchurch Hospital.(NEWS AND EVENTS)
May 1, 2006... Ensuring nurses use their competency, skills and unique body of knowledge to positively influence patient care and reduce unnecessary delays to patient discharge, was the impetus behind the introduction of the nurse-initiated discharge project...

Nurse migration needs further research.(NEWS AND EVENTS)
May 1, 2006... Critical global challenges facing nursing include the impact of HIV and Aids in Africa, internal and international migration and health sector reform, according to a leading nurse migration researcher James Buchan. Addressing the Nursing...

Tackling obesity.(NEWS AND EVENTS)(Brief article)
May 1, 2006... Visionary leadership and legislative change is needed if the Ministry of Health's Healthy Eating, Healthy Action (HEHA) strategy is to tackle the issues leading to obesity, according to NZNO's submission to the Health Select Committee's inquiry...

NZNO backs Plunket's campaign to restore PlunketLine.(NEWS AND EVENTS)
May 1, 2006... NZNO is backing Plunket's campaign to re-instate PlunketLine. The Ministry of Health has contracted McKesson New Zealand Ltd to provide a 24-hour free well child phone service, previously operated by Plunket under a sub-contract to McKesson....

Government honours red Red Cross and army nurses.(NEWS AND EVENTS)(Brief article)
May 1, 2006... The Government has honoured New Zealand Red Cross delegates for their role in bringing aid to South Asia following the Boxing Day tsunami in 2004. Prime Minister Helen Clark awarded the New Zealand Special Service Medal (Asian Tsunami) to...

Support for Maori electoral option.(NEWS AND EVENTS)(Brief article)
May 1, 2006... NZNO is supporting a coalition of Maori organisations formed to promote the Maori Electoral Option. The coalition--made up of the Council of Trade Unions' Runanga (Te Kauae Kaimahi), NZNO, Te Mana Akonga (The Maori Tertiary Students...

Practitioner of the year.(NEWS AND EVENTS )(Kate Gellatly awarded )(Brief article)
May 1, 2006... Long-time palliative care nurse at Te Omanga Hospice, Kate Gellatly, was last month presented with Hurt Vattey District Health Board's Practitioner of the Year award, in the board's annual Community Excellence Awards. Gellatly is the palliative...

Stop press.(conferences of New Zealand Nurses Organisation)(Brief article)
May 1, 2006... A forum for second-revel nurses, educators, employers, NZNO and all other interested parties on the scope of practice and the level of the nurse assistant (NA)qualification on the New Zealand Qualifications Authority (NZQA) Framework will be...

Clair part of delegation to ILO conference.(International Labour Organisation)(Maori Sharon Clair)(Brief article)
May 1, 2006... NZNO's policy analyst Maori and Council of Trade Unions' vice president Maori Sharon Clair is part of the New Zealand delegation leaving at the end of this month for the annual conference of the International Labour Organisation (ILO). ...

Frustration mounting over hospice funding: delivery of palliative care depends on nurses. And hospice nurses, their employers and NZNO are getting frustrated by the lack of a Government response to their pleas for more money to pay nurses fairly.(NEWS FOCUS)
May 1, 2006... Funding is always going to be an issue for hospices around the country. Chief executive of Hospice New Zealand Mary Schumacher says access and quality of service will always be hospices' top priority "but for that to happen, we must have...

Caring for someone dying at home: assisting those caring for a terminally ill family member at home can be a rewarding but challenging nursing experience. Providing adequate nursing support is critical to the success of this type of caring.(PRACTICE)
May 1, 2006... Increasingly, people with end-stage and chronic diseases are being cared for by family members in their own homes. (1,2,3) Family members have assumed or had forced on them the primary caregiver role because of changes in health care funding...

Easing the journey to death: palliative care nursing has undergone a revolution in the past two decades. Nelson Hospice and palliative care nurse Gael Deaker have been part of the changes.(PROFILE)
May 1, 2006... There's a calmness as you enter the Nelson Hospice. The ambience is far removed from the sometimes frantic air of a hospital ward. At reception there are raffle tickets for a load of firewood, and letters to Health Minister Pete Hodgson calling...

Learning from other nurses' mistakes: there are some hard lessons to be learned for nurses who take on unrealistic workloads and then face disciplinary proceedings arising from those untenable workloads.(PROFESSIONAL FOCUS)
May 1, 2006... The New Zealand Health Practitioners' Disciplinary Tribunal was established following enactment of the Health Practitioners' Competence Assurance Act 2003 (HPCA). Thirteen cases related to nurses have been referred to the Tribunal. Five have...

Who cares: a photographic essay by Alan Knowles on caregivers working with the elderly.
May 1, 2006... "I wore a pedometer and did more than 17,000 steps on a single shift." [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] "$10.50 an hour isn't enough--not with our new baby." [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] "We have to be careful because she has very thin skin...

Aged-care facilities face challenges in providing quality palliative care: as New Zealand's population ages, more people will die in aged-care facilities. These settings face considerable challenges in providing good palliative care for their dying residents.(NEWS FOCUS)
May 1, 2006... Providing palliative care to residents of aged-care facilities is an increasing need within our health services. With an aging population--13 percent of the population will be aged over 65 by 2010, rising to 25 percent by 2051 (1)--this need...

'Articulate your practice or risk irrelevance: building bridges was the theme of last month's wound cure society conference. Many nurses discovered, perhaps for the first time, the relevance of research to improved patient outcomes.(New Zealand Wound Care Society conference updates)
May 1, 2006... The world has changed and the good old days are never coming back." So said keynote speaker and internationally renowned paediatric nursing specialist Philip Darbyshire in his opening address to the New Zealand Wound Care Society (NZWCS)...

The reality of aged-care for families: in last month's Kai Tiaki Nursing New Zealand, a caregiver and a nurse manager of an aged-care hospital and rest-home described their work. This month, we hear from four family members about their perceptions of the care their loved ones are receiving or have received.(NEWS FOCUS)
May 1, 2006... While many aged-care facilities around the country struggle to attract and keep their nursing and caregiving staff, the families of those they care for often feel like the meat in the sandwich. Sheila Sykes' husband Donald was admitted to...

NSU meets heads of schools.(National Student Unit)
May 1, 2006... The National Student Unit's (NSU) second meeting of the year in early April was productive and fulfilling, as delegates worked to achieve several strategic aims congruent with their strategic direction. Joining the NSU were five new...

Student gain valuable support at Invercargill hui.(NATIONAL STUDENT UNIT)
May 1, 2006... Ko Taronaki taku maunga; Ko Waitotoro taku awa; No Parihaka ahau; Ko Ed Archibald toko matua; Ko Marilyn Rukuwoi toko whoio; Ko Nadine taku ingoa. Kia ora, tauira o nga neehi. During my Easter holidays I attended the hui tauira o nga neehi...

Members can make pay parity happen: members can win pay parity in the primary health sector but they must continue to actively campaign and to encourage others and the public to support them.(INDUSTRIAL FOCUS)
May 1, 2006... It was a huge honour to be part of NZNO's delegation to the Health Select Committee last month in support of our submission on pay parity for primary health care (PHC) nurses and health workers. Our delegation had energy, commitment and passion...

Rural nurses' vital role acknowledged.(SECTION/COLLEGE NEWS)(New Zealand Rural General Practice Network conference)
May 1, 2006... This year's New Zealand Rural General Practice Network conference, held in Christchurch over four days at the end of March/early April attracted nearly 350 visitors with an interest in rural hearth. Around 90 of them were rural nurses. The...

Research section sets strategic goals.(SECTION/COLLEGE NEWS)
May 1, 2006... Getting to know the new committee members was one of the aims of a two-day meeting of the Nursing Research Section in Auckland at the end of March. Only the secretary, Louise Rummel remains from the former committee. New chair is Jean...

Learning about respiratory care.(SECTION/COLLEGE NEWS)
May 1, 2006... "Stimulating and enjoyable, an excellent range of speakers"--"Found the whole forum and networking beneficial and motivating"--"I took forward to another excellent programme next year". So responded some of the 60 participants who attended...

Bumper turn out for enrolled nurse study day.(SECTION/COLLEGE NEWS)
May 1, 2006... Over 155 nurses attended the Wellington Enrolled Nurse Section Study day on March 30 in Lower Hurt. This year we had to use larger premises as we had 35 more people attending than last year. They travelled from as far away as Taihape and...

Job losses likely following review at Otago district health board.(SECTOR REPORTS)(District Health Board )
May 1, 2006... There is to be a review of services and personnel at Otago District Health Board (DHB), which is likely to result in a number of job losses. DHB managers were invited to give a presentation to the NZNO's workplace delegates at their April...

Marking significant occasions for nurses and workers.(celebrations at New Zealand Nurses Organisation)
May 1, 2006... NZNO members in the Wellington Region held a breakfast meeting to celebrate International Nurses Day on May 12. As this year's theme was Safe Staffing Saves Lives, the keynote speaker was chair of the Committee of Inquiry into Safe Staffing and...

Aged-care delegates decide on action.(SECTOR REPORTS)
May 1, 2006... NZNO, as part of its Grow to Win Campaign, is to produce a series of resources outlining what aged-care workers had before the Employment Contracts Act came into force in 1991, what they've lost, and what has been won back since the Employment...

Negligence in diabetes care results in supervised practiced.(NURSING COUNCIL)(Brief article)
May 1, 2006... Professional misconduct through negligence has resulted in a registered nurse (RN) having to practise under the superrvision of a registered nurse for the next three years. The Health Practitioners' Disciplinary Tribunal, in a decision last...

Registration cancelled for possession of objectional material.(NURSING COUNCIL)(Brief article)
May 1, 2006... Possession of two video recordings and two prints depicting a variety of objectionable acts has resulted in a nurse having his registration cancelled. Stephen Derecourt was found guilty of professional misconduct and had his registration as a...

Te Runanga considers un special report.(TE RUNANGA)(New Zealand Nurses Organization)(Organization overview)
May 1, 2006... He mihi o te ranei kia koutou nga kaimahi hauora. Te Runanga's national executive komiti's b-monthly hui was held in Wellington over two days last month. It was great to regroup and continue working on our partnership with NZNO, for the...

Ten years' involvement with Te Runanga reviewed.
May 1, 2006... Tena koutou, tena koutou katoa. My career has now changed from that of nurse to NZNO organiser. I have been a worksite delegate for more than 17 years and have been involved with NZNO on many levels, including nearly 10 years with Te...