Surgical serves communities and enhances the skills of rural nurses; as well as reducing waiting lists in many isolated areas, the mobile surgical bus is assisting rural nurses to enhance their skills and improve their work satisfaction.(WORKPLACE PROFILE)

Publication: Kai Tiaki: Nursing New Zealand

Publication Date: 01-MAR-06

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COPYRIGHT 2006 New Zealand Nurses' Organisation

Four years ago this month, a unique mobile operating theatre, housed in a 39-tonne, 20m-long and 2.5m-wide bus, began touring the length and breadth of New Zealand, bringing day surgical procedures to many hundreds of people in rural communities. Funded by the Ministry of Health at around $5 million dollars annually, the surgical bus was built in Rotorua. According to the Christchurch-based director of Mobile Surgical Services Stu Gowland, it provides a service unique to New Zealand. "In other countries, mobile surgical services are about improving capacity. This is not our core business. We want to provide better access to patients in rural areas who would otherwise have to travel long distances to metropolitan hospitals for their elective surgery. We also want to stimulate small local hospitals and rural nurses to upskill and enlarge the scope of the work they do."

The surgical bus is staffed by five teams of nurses and anaesthetic technicians, who are rostered to work one week in every five. The regular five-week travelling schedules include three weeks in the North Island and two weeks in the South Island. At each site, one registered nurse and one anaesthetic technician--all permanent staff of the mobile service--work with a minimum of four local nurses. Altogether there is a network of about 50 "reskilled" perioperative nurses who provide support in local areas during and after surgery. These nurses are critical to the success of the service and its connections with local communities, says the service's clinical nurse educator Lorna Davies. Surgeons will mostly come from the base hospital in each rural area the bus visits.

The bus travels as far north as Kaikohe and as far south as Gore, staying at each site for a minimum of one night. Over the last four years, the bus has extended its coverage to include areas like the Kapiti Coast and the Hutt Valley. Next month, the bus makes its first...

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