Australian Nursing Journal articles from April 2003

Australian Nursing Journal archives from April 2003

Working together for a just society. (Editorial).
April 1, 2003... This month, the ANJ highlights the positive contribution of unions, to members, their professions, and to their respective countries. I rather like the word 'union'. The image to me is one of people joined together in a common cause, committed...

Good sense over dollars and cents. (Letters to the Editor).
April 1, 2003... Is there such a thing as sensible management? Our organisation has decided to effectively phase RN Div 2s (ENs) off our acute and medical wards. Apparently, their skills and services are no longer required. I am very disappointed at this...

Explaining the settlement. (Letters to the Editor).
April 1, 2003... I refer to a statement in the February 2003 ANJ ('Colleges settle dispute', p.10). In this statement you have omitted to include all the details in relation to the said settlement. In the interests of clarity and accuracy to the readers, I...

Is it time for a third way? (Letters to the Editor).
April 1, 2003... I am a RN Div 2 (EN) wishing to expand my education to become an RN Div 1. I am finding the courses available are too long and expensive, and for those of us who have to work, unmanageable time-wise. Surely with the improvements in...

Not happy as a nurse. (Letters to the Editor).
April 1, 2003... I'm hoping to cause one of the 31000 nursing job vacancies by 2006 ('What has the Federal Government done?' ANJ March 2003, p.1). I gained my BN in 1997; was really enthusiastic, proud and inspired to implement and research various ideas....

ANJ network.
April 1, 2003... Mercy Maternity Hospital, February 1983 Midwifery Group 20-year reunion Contact Pam Joseph ph: (03) 9890 6430, Kim Venning ph: (03) 9872 3461 email: pamjoseph@yahoo.com. Royal Melbourne Hospital January 1963 Group 40-year reunion ...

Medicare fighting for life under Coalition Government. (News).
April 1, 2003... The Prime Minister's recent comments that Medicare was only ever intended as a safety net for the disadvantaged show just how serious the threats to Australia' system of universal health coverage are. John Howard's comments followed the...

Bulk billing: not only for the poor. (News).(Brief Article)
April 1, 2003... Health economist Professor Stephen Duckett, writing in The Age newspaper, said that to regard bulk bluing as a system for the poor would introduce undesirable stigmatisation of poor people and would represent a major shift in policy to the...

Nurses stay in the house. (Briefs).(Brief Article)
April 1, 2003... The Federal Parliament House nurses centre - which serves nearly 4000 people - was threatened with closure in March as part of a cost-cutting proposal. The proposal aimed to give security guards additional first aid training or get MPs to visit...

Women and workplace injury. (Briefs).(Brief Article)
April 1, 2003... Women are at greater risk of workplace injury than men, according to new figures. The WorkCover figures released on the eve of International Women's Day - 8 March - show women make nearly 12,500 new claims each year, costing about $38 million....

Design a poster. (Briefs).
April 1, 2003... The Mental Health Foundation of Australia (Victoria) invites Victorian artists to create an innovative piece of artwork portraying an optimistic and. positive image of mental health for Mental Health Week, 5-11 October. The winning artwork will...

Rewarding better OH&S. (Briefs).
April 1, 2003... Aged care facilities can enter the 2003 Better Health and Safety Awards and win prizes worth more than $20,000. The awards aim to raise awareness of OH&S within residential aged care. Applications close 15 April. Visit: www.bhsawards.com or ph:...

Correction.(Correction Notice)
April 1, 2003... On page 12 of the March ANJ ('Bargaining in good faith') we reported that the. Queensland Nurse's Union (QNU, ANF Qld) endorsed the 'Queensland Public Sector Protocol for Good Faith Bargaining. The QNU have since pointed out that the union...

Nurses welcome $31 million study plan. (News).(Brief Article)
April 1, 2003... The NSW Nurses' Association (NSWNA, ANF NSW) has welcomed the announcement of a $31 million NSW scholarship and study leave plan to encourage public health system nurses to expand their skills and qualifications. The plan, unveiled on 1...

Royal Darwin Hospital crisis sparks nurse anger. (News).(Brief Article)
April 1, 2003... Angry ANF NT Branch members at the Royal Darwin Hospital (RDH) placed a ban on non-emergency surgery at the beginning of March, after record numbers of admissions brought the hospital's emergency department to a standstill. The crisis...

Paid maternity leave long overdue. (News).(Brief Article)
April 1, 2003... Union women from around the world met in Melbourne in February to call for Federally funded paid maternity leave for all working women in Australia. Over 300 delegates from the International Council of Free Trade Unions (ICFTU) World...

Federation election results. (News).(Australian Nurse Federation)(Brief Article)
April 1, 2003... Coral Levett from NSW has been elected Federal President and Kim Luby re-elected as Federal Vice President in the recent ANF elections. The two join Jill Iliffe and Geradine (Ged) Cowin who were elected unopposed as Federal Secretary and...

APHEDA raffle time. (Briefs).
April 1, 2003... It's time for this years APHEDA-Union Aid Abroad annual raffle. Prizes include a round-the-world trip sponsored by Members Equity and Member Connect or a computer donated by Virtual Communities. The money raised will help APHEDA strengthen...

Detention centre claims. (Briefs).(Brief Article)
April 1, 2003... Four nurses have filed notices of claim for unspecified damages, costs and interest against Australasian Correctional Management for depression, post-traumatic stress disorders and psychiatric disabilities caused by working at the Woomera...

Making the difference. (Briefs).
April 1, 2003... The Fourth National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Health Workers' Conference takes place in Adelaide on 15-18 June. Health workers-making the difference will offer a range of specialist speakers and interactive workshops and feature a...

Icepacks for stings. (Briefs).(Brief Article)
April 1, 2003... Icepacks are the new treatment of choice for bee and wasp stings, according to researchers at the NSW Poisons Information service at Westmead Hospital. The researchers compared icepacks with the more typically advocated aspirin paste remedy in...

Mastectomy care kit. (Briefs).(Caring for You Care Kit)(caringforyou@theberleigroup.com.au.)(Brief Article)
April 1, 2003... Every woman in Australia who undergoes mastectomy will soon receive a free Caring for You Care Kit. Containing a soft cup bra and temporary breast form, the kit is designed to reduce the anxiety, trauma and discomfort associated with poor...

Deeble report rattles health insurers. (News).
April 1, 2003... The Australian Health Insurance Association (AHIA) launched a desperate attack on the State and Territory health ministers in February in the wake of a damning report into the annual $2.2 billion private health insurance rebate and news of a...

New laws allow confidentiality breaches. (News).(if patient poses a risk to others)(Brief Article)
April 1, 2003... Queensland's public health officials will be able to break confidentiality if they feel a patient poses a risk to others, after the introduction of new laws introduced into the Queensland Parliament on 25 February. Health Minister Wendy...

An end to the aged care paper chase? (News).(Brief Article)
April 1, 2003... The ANF has welcomed the announcement of measures to reduce the burden of paperwork in aged care. Federal Ageing Minister Kevin Andrews announced the measures on 13 March in response to the Resident Classification Scale (RCS) Review he...

Money for palliative care. (Briefs).(Brief Article)
April 1, 2003... The Federal Government has announced funding of more than $4.5 million for a range of community initiatives aimed at improving the quality of palliative care. The Caring communities program aims to by assisting families, carers and health...

Trial continues. (Briefs).(HealthConnect online medical information trial in Tasmania)(Brief Article)
April 1, 2003... Tasmanian patients become the first in Australia to access their medical information online in a trial to determine the feasibility of a national electronic health records system. Nearly 400 participants - all adults with diabetes treated in...

Women support unions. (Briefs).(Brief Article)
April 1, 2003... Women have more positive attitudes towards trade unions than men, new research in to perceptions in the workplace reveals. The survey of 1025 workers, conducted by the University of Sydney's Australian Centre for Industrial Relations Research...

Campaign extended. (Briefs).(nurse recruitment)(Brief Article)
April 1, 2003... NSW Health's nurse recruitment campaign was extended in February after the hotline received more than 1500 enquiries from people considering nursing as a career and from nurses considering returning. NSW Director-General of Health Robyn Kruk...

Helping herpes sufferers. (Briefs).(Brief Article)
April 1, 2003... Adelaide will host Hevent 2003 Australia's first national herpes gathering on 19-21 September. The event aims to educate the public and offer support to herpes sufferers and their families through positive attitudes and open discussion...

ANF condemns no-show minister. (News).(Brief Article)
April 1, 2003... The ANF joined a chorus of criticism directed at Federal Health Minister Kay Patterson when she decided to snub the joint Commonwealth, State and Territory health ministers' meeting on 21 February. The meeting was scheduled to discuss a new...

Booze and smokes: a fading Aussie image. (News).(Brief Article)
April 1, 2003... The image that Australians are high consumers of tobacco and alcohol is fading, according to a report released in February by the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare. Statistics on Drug Use in Australia 2002 says the proportion of...

ACT appoints Chief Nurse. (News).(Teresa Bradfield)(Brief Article)
April 1, 2003... Teresa Bradfield has joined ACT Health as the Territory's first Chief Nurse. Ms Bradfield, originally from the UK, spent over 10 years in Auckland at the Greenlane and National Women's Hospitals and then in Dunedin as Clinical Practice...

Nurses see red over aged care. (News).(Brief Article)
April 1, 2003... Faced with an exodus of nurses from the public and private aged care sectors in South Australia, ANF SA Branch launched a major campaign in March to raise the public profile of the State's aged care issues. Speaking before the launch of...

Military comparisons disturbing. (News).
April 1, 2003... The ANF was puzzled and disturbed by Federal Education Minister Brendan Nelson's comparison of nurses to soldiers in an article in Sydney's North Shore Times on 19 February. In his editorial, Dr Nelson described ENs as 'foot soldiers' and...

Nurses strike after rape. (Briefs).(Brief Article)
April 1, 2003... Nurses at Port Moresby Hospital in Papua New Guinea walked off the job on 18 February after a colleague was gang raped on her way to work. The nurse was in a group stranded after their mini-bus broke down in torrential rain. Nurses have called...

Global skin health. (Briefs).(Brief Article)
April 1, 2003... A new website launched by the International Skin Care Nursing Group promises to raise the global profile of skin health. The site provides updates on conferences; news on the group's lymphatic filariasis work in Tanzania; and, copies of nursing...

Jail for fire patient. (Briefs).(Brief Article)
April 1, 2003... A patient who set fire to his hospital bed in an attempt to attract nurses' attention received a three-year jail sentence from a Welsh Court in February. The 40-year-old man who was recovering from alcohol problems at the Princess of Wales...

Global guidance. (Briefs).(Brief Article)
April 1, 2003... The International Council of Nurses (ICN) has published global guidelines on professional nursing competencies. The ICN Framework of competencies for the generalist nurse presents a framework of competencies for the nurse at the point of entry...

Police fire to disperse nurses. (Briefs).(Brief Article)
April 1, 2003... Police in the Indian State of Bihar fired in the air to disperse nurses and health workers protesting against the abduction and subsequent killing of one of their nurse colleagues. The demonstrations, on 18 February, followed the discovery of...

Back to basics. (Briefs).(houskeepers help nurses in hospital)(Brief Article)
April 1, 2003... Housekeepers are assisting nurses on two wards at Blackpool's Victoria Hospital under a new UK Government pilot scheme. The housekeepers ensure the wards are clean; help patients with non-clinical needs, such as filling out menu forms; and,...

Minority nurses denied senior roles. (World News).(Brief Article)
April 1, 2003... The UK's black and ethnic minority nurses are being denied senior nursing roles in favour of white co-workers, the first national London Black and Minority National Health Service Network (LBMN) conference heard at the end of February. ...

World Bank recognises union role. (World News).(in the national economy)(Brief Article)
April 1, 2003... Workers who belong to trade unions earn higher wages, work fewer hours, receive more training, and have longer job tenure on average, than their non-unionised counterparts. These are the findings of a World Bank study released in February...

Clear intentions. (World News).(advance directives)(Brief Article)
April 1, 2003... A retired UK nurse has had 'Do not resuscitate' tattooed across her chest so that medical staff will know her intentions if she ever falls into a coma. Francis Polack, 85, from New Forest Hampshire has been carrying a living will in her...

Encouraging school students into nursing. (Federal Professional News).
April 1, 2003... How do we encourage more school students to choose nursing as a career? This is the vexed question being considered by a project being organised by the Enterprise and Career Education Foundation (ECEF) with funding from the Commonwealth...

Facial clues offer key to pain assessment. (Research Update).(assessing pain in people with advanced dementia)(Brief Article)
April 1, 2003... Observations of facial expressions and vocalisations are accurate means for assessing the presence of pain in patients unable to communicate verbally because of advanced dementia, American research says. Based on interviews with 31...

Inhalers as effective as nebulisers for young children. (Research Update).(treatment of wheezing)(Brief Article)
April 1, 2003... Metered dose inhalers (MDIs) with spacers are as effective as nebulisers for the emergency department treatment of wheezing in young children, according to new research. Researchers screened 168 wheezing children aged two to 24 months...

Stress and the foetus. (Research Update).(stress in pregnant women can affect fetal heart rate)(Brief Article)
April 1, 2003... Stress-related changes in a pregnant woman's heart rate and blood pressure, along with chronic anxiety, can affect the heart rate of a developing foetus, a new study concludes. Researchers examined 32 healthy third trimester pregnant women...

Fruit linked to cancer prevention. (Research Update).(Brief Article)
April 1, 2003... Adults who ate plenty of fruit when they were children are less likely to suffer from certain types of cancer, British scientists suggest. A study of nearly 4000 men and women showed that fruit consumption in childhood was inversely...

A guide to clean intermittent self-catheterisation. (Clinical Update).
April 1, 2003... Introduction As recently as the early 1970s, a technique of clean intermittent self-catheterisation (CISC) was described to treat incomplete bladder emptying. (1) Since then, CISC has been widely adopted and has been shown to reduce the...

Unions: alive and well.(nursing unions)
April 1, 2003... As Australia faces its most dramatic industrial reform in decades-with as many as 22 pieces of anti-union legislation waiting to pass through Federal Parliament-it's timely to look at the role in unions in Australia, and see what they have...

Free online cancer education. (Nursing Focus).(CancerNursing.org)(Brief Article)
April 1, 2003... A new website is offering free online cancer education for nurses and health professionals around the world. CancerNursing.org, a voluntary partnership between specialist nurses and e-learning experts, hosts the site and launched its first...

Rural scholarships available, but be quick. (Nursing Focus).(Brief Article)
April 1, 2003... Time is running out for applications for a new $21 million postgraduate scholarship scheme to improve professional development and education for allied health professionals in rural and remote Australia. The three-year Allied Health Rural...

New university campus for Queensland. (Nursing Focus).(Australian Catholic University Brisbane Campus )(Brief Article)
April 1, 2003... Nursing education in Queensland received a boost last month with the official opening of Queensland's newest university campus. Premier Peter Beattie opened the new Australian Catholic University (ACU National) Brisbane Campus - McAuley at...

Palliative Care Nursing: A Guide to Practice, 2nd ed.(Book Review)
April 1, 2003... Margaret O'Connor and Sanchia Aranda (editors) Ausmed Publications pp.400 $65.95 ISBN 0 9577988 4 9 Visit: www.ausmed.com.au Written mainly by nurses for nurses, the revised second edition of Palliative care nursing: A guide...

Spirituality in Nursing: Standing on Holy Ground, 2nd ed.(Book Review)
April 1, 2003... Mary Elizabeth O'Brien Jones and Bartlett Publishers $112.20 Inc. GST ISBN 0 7637 0052 5 Visit: www.blackwellasia.com According to its preface, the purpose of Spirituality in nursing is to explore the relationship between...

Looking for a graduate nurse program? (Nursing Focus).(Brief Article)
April 1, 2003... Knowledge consolidation and the need to narrow the renowned theory/practice gap are not new concepts. The recently graduated nurse now has a smorgasbord of structured programs to choose from and has become a discerning customer. No longer...

Meridian Stretching eases back pain. (Nursing Focus).(stretching exercises)(Brief Article)
April 1, 2003... Back pain affects a great many people from all walks of life. Young, old, fit and unfit - people complain of back pain for all sorts of reasons. There are many causes of back pain and back injuries. The most common ones are poor posture...

Cheung's Meridian Stretching (CMS). (Nursing Focus).(stretching exercises)(Brief Article)
April 1, 2003... While practising CMS, it is important to keep your tongue gently touching your upper palate. This connects the Front and Back Trunk Meridians and so the following exercise will become a Chi Gung (internal energy) exercise. 1 Perform 20...

Simply relax and invite calmness. (Nursing Focus).(stress management)(Brief Article)
April 1, 2003

Complementary therapy for women. (Nursing Focus).(Mater Adult Hospital Women's Health Surgical Unit)(Brief Article)
April 1, 2003... Brisbane's Mater Adult Hospital has opened a new Women's Health Surgical Unit providing breast, urogynaecology, gynaecology /oncology and gynaecology services. As the new Nurse Practice Coordinator in this unit, I am fortunate in having...

Yoga for health and vitality. (Nursing Focus).(Brief Article)
April 1, 2003... Yoga has its roots in India and its practice has evolved over the last 2000 years. Iyengar yoga is one of the forms most widely practised in the West and is named after its founder, BKS Iyengar - who is 83 years old and continues to...

The sweet smell of The Birches. (Nursing Focus).(aged care facility has alternative medicine program)
April 1, 2003... Aromatherapy and other complementary modalities are regular features of the nursing care and diversional therapy programs undertaken by The Birches, one of the aged care facilities of Western District Health Service, located at Hamilton Base...

Calendar.(Calendar)
April 1, 2003... Graduate Certificate in Nursing (Health Services) by distance education in 2003 Nursing Services Management in Health, Financing Nursing and Health Services, Human Resources Management in Nursing Faculty of Nursing, The University of...

Nurses: you can't live with them, but could die without them. (Ged's Column).
April 1, 2003... A colleague recently accused me of making gross generalisations about nurses. I quickly leapt to my own defence by blaming someone else. 'It's not me,' I protested, 'it's my husband, he does it all the time'. 'I'll have to stop mentioning...

It's my life.(nursing chronicles)(Brief Article)
April 1, 2003... Tony Reddrop. RN, Melbourne I've been working in emergency at the Royal Melbourne for the last three months for the bank. It's always very busy and pretty interesting. You get to see how understaffed public hospitals are. A lot of the time...