Australian Nursing Journal articles from April 2004

Australian Nursing Journal archives from April 2004

Political point scoring has no place in health care.(editorial)
April 1, 2004... It is very discouraging to see health care decisions being made for purely political reasons. The recent additions made to the MedicarePlus package to ensure its passage through the Senate are the latest example of politicians bargaining with...

Call for unity.(mail)(Letter to the Editor)
April 1, 2004... Three years ago, on deciding I could no longer work with the frustration, anger and guilt that accompanied my daily shift as an RN (Divison 1) in private aged care, I joined the public sector. This move coincided with the work being done by...

National action on violence.(mail)(Letter to the Editor)
April 1, 2004... I write regarding the shocking news of the assaults on nurses Debbie Freeman and Chris Morley in WA. As a mental health nurse in acute admissions, I fully understand the tragic but foreseeable circumstances that have occurred. I do not...

Challenges of detention.(mail)(Letter to the Editor)
April 1, 2004... Thanks to Michael Hall for his thoughtful article 'Frontline nursing in detention' (ANJ, Feb. 2004, pp.32-33). As a nurse who has practiced at Woomera, I would like to share my thoughts. Detention centres fulfil a political purpose and...

Network.(Calendar)
April 1, 2004... Royal North Shore Hospital, Sydney, 5/84 20-year reunion May 2004. Email Jo 'Cooper' Macintosh your contact details at jochalmers@optusnet.com.au or Ph: 0417 538 166 Queen Elizabeth Hospital, SA, 34th PTS, commenced Jan 1964, 40-year...

Politics and health don't mix.(news)(Brief Article)
April 1, 2004... Nurses in NSW have voiced concerns about the politicisation of the recent events at Camden and Campbelltown hospitals in NSW. In state parliament last month, NSW opposition leader John Brogden alleged a birth at Camden Hospital last year...

No guarantees in Medicare deal.(news)(Brief Article)
April 1, 2004... The ANF has claimed the federal government's deal with the independents on MedicarePlus abandons the founding principles of Medicare and fails to protect the most vulnerable members of the Australian community. 'Even though the incentive...

Mental health underfunded.(news)(Brief Article)
April 1, 2004... Following a spate of incidents around the country, experts are warning of imminent disaster in community and mental health services nationally unless the system is reformed. A nurse in Western Australia remains in a coma after being...

Leap in practice nurses.(news)
April 1, 2004... Nursing in general practice is a rapidly growing specialty, according to findings from a new survey. The preliminary findings of the first national survey of general practice nurses, conducted by the Australian Divisions of General...

Survey shows nurses will walk.(news)(Brief Article)
April 1, 2004... More than half (52%) of nurses working in the Victorian public sector would consider resigning, retiring early or reducing their nursing hours if nurse to patient ratios were removed, a survey has found. Conducted by ACIRRT, Sydney...

Nurses threaten industrial action.(news)(Brief Article)
April 1, 2004... Nurses working in aged care will take industrial action if their claim for wage parity is not met, according to ANF Tasmanian Branch Secretary Neroli Ellis. As Aged and Community Services Tasmania (ACST) said some aged care facilities...

Treaties could improve indigenous health.(news)(Brief Article)
April 1, 2004... The 'broad denial of rights' and the lack of a treaty for Aboriginal people in Australia was responsible for their 'appalling life outcomes', said Patrick Dodson, former chair of the Reconciliation Council. Launching the Healing Hands...

WA workloads at risk.(news)(Washington)(Brief Article)
April 1, 2004... Nursing workloads are under threat in WA since a 2002 Federal Industrial Relations Commission order setting benchmarks expired in February. The ANF is seeking a separate agreement to ensure nurses can enforce benchmarks for workloads....

Global nursing study.(news)(Brief Article)
April 1, 2004... The International Council of Nurses (ICN) is undertaking the first systematic investigation of the nursing workforce across the globe. The study will identify policy and practice issues and solutions and investigate the extent of the global...

Happy to pay tax.(news)(Brief Article)
April 1, 2004... Australians would pay more tax if it leads to improved health and medical research, according to an AC Nielsen survey commissioned by Research Australia. The survey found 88% of Australians were prepared to pay higher taxes to ensure access to...

First national pain management project.(news)
April 1, 2004... Eight of Australia's high volume cancer hospitals will take part in the first national pain management improvement project in Australia. Coordinated by the National Institute of Clinical Studies (NICS), this project will tackle the 'under...

Debate over funding aged care.(news)
April 1, 2004... Aged care is shaping up to be a major issue in the lead up to this year's federal election, with Federal Cabinet currently considering the recommendations of the Hogan Report. a federal government review of pricing arrangements in aged care....

Surgery fast tracked.(news)(Brief Article)
April 1, 2004... Almost 3,000 people will be fast-tracked through the health system in Queensland over the next three months in an effort to reduce surgical waiting lists. Election promises by the Beattie government to cut waiting times for elective...

Festival celebrates.(News)(Brief Article)
April 1, 2004... Caption: The RDNS is hoping a new festival initiated through its homeless persons program will become an annual event. Program manager, Theresa Swanborough, said the 'Where the Heart is' festival provided 'wonderful opportunities for workers...

Civilian nurses still not covered.(news)(Brief Article)
April 1, 2004... The ANF has warned nurses who are not part of the Australian Defence Forces they will not be covered adequately by proposed compensation arrangements should they volunteer in areas of conflict or War. According to ANF Federal Secretary...

Extra carers' leave.(news)(Brief Article)
April 1, 2004... The ACTU will seek a new entitlement to five days of carers' leave, in a significant amendment to its work and family test case. Under the proposal, a new stand-alone entitlement to five days carers' leave would be established, rather than the...

12-hour shift errors.(news)(Brief Article)
April 1, 2004... Tired nurses are a threat to patient safety according to a report published in the USA. Keeping Patients Safe: Transforming the work environment of nurses found 20% of staff who responded to their survey knew of an error caused by fatigue that...

Rotating shifts unpopular.(news)(Brief Article)
April 1, 2004... Internal shift rotation is deeply unpopular and a major reason nurses left the profession according to the Royal College of Nursing (UK). Almost 10% of the 10,000 nurses surveyed said they planned to leave nursing in the next two years. This...

ACT gets nurse practitioners.(news)(American College Test )(Brief Article)
April 1, 2004... The ACT is set to join NSW, Victoria, WA, and SA in appointing nurse practitioners, with the passing of the government's Nurse Practitioner Amendment Bill in March. ANF ACT Branch Secretary Colleen Duff said the long-awaited move gave ACT...

Free trade and the PBS.(professional)(Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme)
April 1, 2004... Throughout the negotiating period for the recently concluded Free Trade Agreement (FTA) between the USA and Australia, the ANF raised concerns about the possibility of the PBS being included in the negotiations. The ANF was particularly...

The case for minimum staffing levels: with a number of states commencing EBA negotiations, Nick Blake explains why minimum staffing levels are essential.(industrial)(enterprise bargaining agreements )
April 1, 2004... Over the past decade it has become increasingly apparent to nurses that many of the intrinsic rewards that led them to enter the profession have diminished or vanished. Severe cuts to health budgets, consequent staff cuts, and the loss of many...

How safe are our hospitals?
April 1, 2004... The number of patient deaths caused by mistakes in Australian hospitals annually is equivalent to 13 jumbo jets crashing each year, says Jeff Richardson, director of the health economics unit at Monash University, Professor Richardson estimates...

Secondary lymphoedema--not a swell condition.(clinical update)
April 1, 2004... Introduction Secondary lymphoedema of the arm often occurs following treatment for breast cancer, especially if axillary node dissection and/or radiotherapy formed part of this treatment. The lymphatics of the arm can be compromised,...

So little does so much: Victorian nurses have built a dispensary in Tanzania RN Julie Marshall tells how they did it.(working life)(Registered nurses)
April 1, 2004... A great opportunity came my way in November 2002 when I attended a lunchtime talk at the Mercy Hospital about the possibility of going to Tanzania to help with the construction of a health care dispensary. I had always been very interested...

Full moon effect.(world)(Brief Article)
April 1, 2004... Despite the belief of many nurses that the full moon has a strange effect on behaviour, scientific reviews published in National Geographic dispute the theory. Canadian psychologist and full moon researcher Ivan Kelly who has published 15...

Zimbabwe health system in tatters.(world)(Brief Article)
April 1, 2004... Three years of economic free fall and hyperinflation have left Zimbabwe desperately shoe of basic drugs and medical equipment, and its once robust network of hospitals and hundreds of rural clinics close to ruin. According to the national...

Dengue fever grips Indonesia.(world)(Brief Article)
April 1, 2004... A shortage of doctors and nurses is hampering Indonesia's efforts to control a severe outbreak of Dengue Fever, according to reports on IslamOnline.net. Indonesian Ministry of Health Official, Razifa Supriani, said it was possible...

No rest for the noise.(world)(Brief Article)
April 1, 2004... Hospital is no place to rest, with noise in wards at night as loud as a rock concert, according to a new study published in the American Journal of Nursing. Researchers from the Mayo Clinic stayed overnight to monitor noise levels, finding the...

UK specialist shortage.(world)(Brief Article)
April 1, 2004... The UK NHS needs thousands of extra nurses to fill current and future demand in specialist areas, reports for the national health department have revealed. Major shortages exist in emergency, oncology, coronary care, mental health and aged...

Too tired to care.(world)(Brief Article)
April 1, 2004... Fatigue was threatening patient safety as nurses struggled to cope with heavy workloads and long hours, according to a new report from the USA Institute of Medicine. The report, Keeping Patients Safe: Transforming the Work Environment of...

Nauru tragedy.(world)(Brief Article)
April 1, 2004... Reports from Amnesty International suggest refugees on Nauru have only limited access to health care, with fresh water for only two hours each day and no educational facilities for children. Journalist Peter Mares from Swinburne University said...

HIV on rise in NZ.(world)(New Zealand)(Brief Article)
April 1, 2004... A record number of people in New Zealand were diagnosed with HIV in 2003, with a rising number infected by heterosexual contact, according to a new report. The NZ Health Ministry said the figures, released by the AIDS Epidemiology Group at the...

Fatigue predicts caesarean births.(research)(Brief Article)
April 1, 2004... Women who suffer from fatigue during pregnancy are more likely to have a caesarean delivery, according to a survey of over 600 patients. The research, published in the Journal of Advanced Nursing, also found women who did not work had...

Drumming reduces stress.(research)(Brief Article)
April 1, 2004... Taking part in drumming sessions may help protect people against workplace stress, a new study of aged care workers has found. When nurses and other employees at a Pennsylvania nursing home with an unusually high staff turnover participated...

Why have all the nurses gone?(research)(Brief Article)
April 1, 2004... A Melbourne hospital has introduced an 'exit policy' with the express purpose of reducing staff attrition, as increasing resignations of nurses challenged the hospital's ability to maintain adequate staffing levels. Box Hill Hospital in...

Practice makes for better outcomes.(research)(Brief Article)
April 1, 2004... Patients of high volume surgeons have lower death rates for heart by-pass surgery, lung resection, and other cardiovascular and oncology procedures than patients whose surgeons performed the operations less frequently, research has found. ...

Dementia linked to depression.(research)(Brief Article)
April 1, 2004... Suffering depression for long periods without treatment could put people at risk of developing dementia, according to a new study by Australian psychiatrists. Professor Graham Burrows, director of psychiatry at the University of Melbourne,...

Home cancer care.(focus)
April 1, 2004... The introduction of a new hospital in the home (HITH) service through Melbourne's Western Health is enabling cancer patients to be treated in the comfort of their own homes. Anthony Bogatirov has stomach cancer and has been attending...

Education supports better care.(focus)(Brief Article)
April 1, 2004... Nurses working in oncology /haematology nursing should take a moment to reflect on the changes they have witnessed or been part of in the last few years. Consider the supportive therapies (anti-emetics, growth factors), new cytotoxic...

Cancer care in primary health settings.(focus)
April 1, 2004... National and international moves toward a greater primary health care approach to cancer care bring challenges and opportunities for nurses in this field. As primary care is generally defined as file care provided at the point of first...

Antibiotic risk.(Focus Briefs)(Brief Article)
April 1, 2004... The risk of breast cancer increases with the use of antibiotics, according to a study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA). The study found women with more that 500 cumulative days of antibiotic use in their...

Nurse-led clinic popular.(Focus Briefs)(Brief Article)
April 1, 2004... Cancer patients have given the thumbs up to a UK nurse-led pre-assessment clinic saying they had no problem having their condition determined by a nurse rather than a doctor. Only 12.5% said they would have preferred to be seen by a doctor. Of...

More suicides than road deaths.(Focus Briefs)(Brief Article)
April 1, 2004... Suicide was the leading external cause of death in Australia between 1998 and 2002, according to an Australian Bureau of Statistics report. Over this period, external causes accounted for 6% of all deaths, claiming 40,370 lives. Over 12,300...

Tailor-made vaccines.(Focus Briefs)(Brief Article)
April 1, 2004... Individual tailor-made cancer vaccines may boost a patient's chance of survival after the removal of kidney tumours, according to new research. Researchers at the University of Lubeck Medical School in Germany made a vaccine for 177 patients...

Improving health through nutrition.(focus)
April 1, 2004... A partnership between the Fred Hollows Foundation, the Jawoyn communities and the Sunrise Health Service in the East Katherine region of the Northern Territory aims to help Indigenous Australians living in remote communities improve their...

A dark hair day.(Focus Briefs)(Hair-colouring risk)(Brief Article)
April 1, 2004... Women who commenced dying their hair before 1980 are 33% more likely to develop Non-Hodgkin's Lymphoma than women who did not, according to researchers at the University of Yale, USA. The study, which compared 600 women with Non-Hodgkin's...

Drug calculation website.(Focus Briefs)(Brief Article)
April 1, 2004... A new web site providing drug calculation and drug administration competency tests for nursing staff has been developed. Nurses can choose questions from nine speciality areas including general adult, general paediatric, general midwifery,...

Cancer nursing conference.(Focus Briefs)(Brief Article)
April 1, 2004... Returning to Australia after 20 years, the 13th International Conference on Cancer Nursing (ICCN) will be hosted by the Cancer Nurses Society of Australia (CNSA) and the international Society of Nurses in Cancer Care at the Sydney Exhibition...

Chemotherapy guidelines.(Focus Briefs)(Brief Article)
April 1, 2004... Nursing guidelines for the administration of chemotherapy, published by the Cancer Nurses Society of Australia (CNSA), highlight the professional obligation for nurses to maintain their skills and knowledge in chemotherapy treatment. The...

Improving health of Indigenous children.(focus)
April 1, 2004... The '0-5 Program', a public health program that includes weighing, measuring, assessing and immunising children in that age group, has been a cornerstone of community health and primary health care nursing since maternal and child health nurses...

Lean on Me: Cancer through a carer's eyes.(Book Review)
April 1, 2004... Lean on Me: Cancer through a carer's eyes Lorraine Kember $24.50 ISBN 0-646-49969-6 Commended by Dr Andrew Dean, consultant physician in palliative care in Perth, WA, Lean on Me is Lorraine Kember's account of her experience as her...

Ngangkari Work--Anangu Way: Traditional healers of central Australia.(Book Review)
April 1, 2004... Ngangkari Work--Anangu Way: Traditional healers of central Australia Ngaanyatjarra Pitjantjatjara Yankunytjatjara Women's Council Aboriginal Corporation $46.95 ISBN 0 9577755-1-2 This book gives voice to the ngangkari, traditional...

Clinical input to palliative care research: .(focus)(Brief Article)
April 1, 2004... Professor Margaret O'Connor, Vivian Bullwinkel Chair in Nursing, Palliative Care, Monash University, Victoria The establishment of the Vivian Bullwinkel Chair in palliative care at Monash University has provided an opportunity to draw...

Improving lung cancer outcomes.(focus)(Brief Article)
April 1, 2004... A training package for nurses caring for lung cancer patients has been developed by the La Trobe University/Austin Health Clinical School of Nursing, Austin Health and the Cancer Council Victoria. Initiated by Professor Annette Street,...

Nursing now at Port Macquarie.(focus)
April 1, 2004... Caption: Residents in Port Macquarie in NSW are now able to study nursing at home through the University of Newcastle with the allocation of 15 full-time, federally funded nursing places to allow students based in Port Macquarie to undertake a...

Calendar.(Calendar)
April 1, 2004... The College of Nursing (incorporating the NSW College of Nursing) Distance education courses for RNs The College of Nursing, Locked Bag 3030, Burwood, NSW 1805 Ph: (02) 9745 7500 Certificate courses in sexual and reproductive health ...

Mum.(Ged)(Column)
April 1, 2004... The phone rang and woke me. It was 7am on a quiet Sunday morning. I knew exactly who it was before I answered. My sister's voice was controlled but I could sense the edge of panic--a slightly higher than normal pitch. 'Mum's breathing...