CATSINaM chalks up 20 years of advocacy
Over the past two decades the Congress of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Nurses and Midwives (CATSINaM) has risen to become one of the nation’s peak bodies advocating for nurses, midwives and Indigenous health. Formally established in 1998, CATSINaM celebrates its 20th anniversary this year and is marking the milestone at its annual conference in […]
World Youth International drives maternal health improvements
Back in 2013, a week before the Odede Community Health Centre launched to deliver vital healthcare to a tiny village community in Kenya, Celia Boyd witnessed a woman give birth on the road virtually on the imminent service’s doorstep because she had been unable to complete the trek to the nearest hospital. The establishment of […]
Why climate change is a major health threat
Health professionals including nurses must view climate change as a major health threat of today in order to improve patient outcomes of tomorrow, according to Dr David Pencheon, Director of the Sustainable Development Unit (SDU) for NHS England and Public Health England. “The main thing is don’t treat climate change as an environmental threat in […]
Revised guide for safely administering oral medicines
An updated version of a key guide to safely administering oral medicines to people with enteral feeding tubes or swallowing difficulties has made information easier and faster to scan in a bid to further assist the decision-making of nurses. Released last month, the comprehensively revised third edition of The Society of Hospital Pharmacists of Australia’s […]
The knowledge of ageing nurses
Registered nurse Shirley Allott retired a few months ago, aged 65, after spending the past two decades working in aged care. Her body began showing signs of decline years earlier, with hearing and vision loss and arthritis increasingly problematic. “Some years before I got hearing aids I denied my hearing loss and when I got […]
Keeping the legacy of Gayle Woodford alive
Associate Professor Sue Lenthall was waiting to board a plane at Sydney Airport when news filtered through that the body of her friend and colleague, remote area nurse Gayle Woodford, had been found in a shallow grave. The nurse on duty at the health clinic in the remote South Australian town of Fregon, Gayle went […]
Australia’s ‘shame’ over offshore detention
In late 2014, paediatric clinical nurse consultant Alanna Maycock spent five days on Nauru providing healthcare to asylum seekers in detention. She encountered dreadful incidents including the rape of a mother, a guard assaulting a father of a child she was caring for, and a six-year-old girl attempting to hang herself with fence ties. Back […]
Keeping the legacy of Gayle Woodford alive
Associate Professor Sue Lenthall was waiting to board a plane at Sydney Airport when news filtered through that the body of her friend and colleague, remote area nurse Gayle Woodford, had been found in a shallow grave. The nurse on duty at the health clinic in the remote South Australian town of Fregon, Gayle went […]
Aged care workers undervalued and underpaid
Aged care providers can prevent their workforce from taking industrial action by installing pay levels that respect and value the work being carried out and addressing chronic understaffing within the sector so elderly nursing home residents receive proper care, ANMF Federal Secretary Annie Butler has argued. Speaking at an Aged Care Workforce Forum in Melbourne […]
Fallen Australian Service Nurses remembered
Throughout 2018, the Australian War Memorial in Canberra is conducting its moving Last Post Ceremony to commemorate the service and sacrifice of seven Australian Service Nurses during times of war. Each nurse’s service to the profession and their country is being celebrated at individual ceremonies held in the Commemorative Courtyard that include advocates laying wreaths […]