Welcome
to the College of Nurses Aotearoa News Update.
No. 313 17 August 2016
National
news
Nurses assessing
Westport patients due to lack of doctors
A
shortage of doctors means nurses are assessing patients at one of the West
Coast's largest medical practices.
Nurses
at Westport's Buller Health Medical will assess patients and decide whether to
call in a doctor.
Read more here
Midwives fear pay will
put people off joining profession
Midwifery
will struggle to remain a viable career option for young people unless pay
increases, some midwives say.
Read more here
New Zealanders lose a
million years of healthy life each year
We're
living longer than ever - but many of those extra years are spent in pain, a
report reveals.
Kiwi
males are expected to live six years longer than a quarter-century ago,
with 80 per cent of those years lived in good health. Females are living 4.5
years longer, and 74 per cent of those years are healthy.
Read more here
Aged
care
Creating safe
environments for older people
Associate
Health Minister Peseta Sam Lotu-Iiga says there is now easier access to the
latest and best approaches for building safe, secure, and stimulating care
homes for people with dementia.
"Older
people with dementia need close and continued contact with the real world.
Things that enrich their lives such as plants and animals. At the same time
they need to be monitored and protected all the time," Mr Lotu-Iiga say
Read more here
Hospital units suited to the elderly help prevent
mental, physical declineOlder patients tend to be more susceptible to mental and
physical deterioration in the hospital, even if they recover from the injury or
illness that landed them there in the first place. However, hospital wards
tailored to older patients' needs can help prevent such effects, according
to NPR.
Read more here
Child
and maternal health
Children with serious
behavioural problems lack relief options
Children
with complex behavioural issues in Nelson Marlborough are ending up
in hospital when there is nowhere else for them to go.
Read more here
More NZ pacific women
encouraged to give birth at homeA
new short film about New Zealand families and their homebirth experiences aims
to empower more Pacific women to give birth at home
Read more here
DHBs
Canterbury, Southern
DHBs account for bulk of NZ's 2015 health overspend
A
report on the health sector by Auditor-General Lyn Provost has fingered
Canterbury District Health Board (DHB) and Southern DHB as the main
contributors to last year's deficit.
Read more here
Diabetes
NZers discover
potential diabetes breakthrough
New
Zealand researchers believe they've made a potentially significant breakthrough
in the management and treatment of Type 2 diabetes.
Read more here
Can protein plus
exercise improve type 2 diabetes?
Exercise
has been shown to improve the health of people with type 2 diabetes. But the
benefits of exercise vary greatly between people, meaning some benefit more
than others. Now, researchers from Massey University’s School of Sport and
Exercise believe they may have discovered why.
Read more here
Surgery effective for
obese diabetes patients, study finds
Weight-loss
surgery is an effective option for obese patients with type-2 diabetes, a New
Zealand study has found.
In
one of the first studies to look at the long-term effects of bariatric surgery
in obese patients, Wellington Hospital endocrinologist Dr Richard Carroll
reviewed the cases of 120 Kiwis who had bariatric surgery at least five years
ago.
Read more here
Sunday feature on
obesity and type 2 diabetes – In the News
TVNZ’s Sunday
programme turned the floodlights on obesity this weekend, with a 15-minute
segment on obesity and type 2 diabetes.
Read more here
Emergency
services
Saving lives with Kiwi
defibrillator locater
An
app is making it easier for people to find life-saving defibrillators in their
area.
The
AED Locations site and app link to Google Maps so users can search their
current location for the closest defibrillator.
Read more here
New resuscitation
books “ideal for health professionals”
The
New Zealand Resuscitation Council has today released two brand new resources to
support its resuscitation training for health professionals.
Read more here
Ethical
issues
More than 21,000 New
Zealanders to have their say on euthanasia - MPs to hold roadshow
A
petition to hold a parliamentary inquiry into euthanasia has pulled
in a staggering 21,000 submissions from across New Zealand.
It's
an issue more than 1800 submitters felt strongly enough about, that they also
wanted to appear in front of Parliament's Health Select Committee to speak to
MPs directly.
Read more here
Mental
health
Episode 2 - Christchurch's
mental health crisisFive
years on from the earthquakes, many expected the mental health of the
population to have recovered. Instead, mental illness statistics are continuing
to climb in almost every measurable area. Christchurch
Dilemmas asks how Canterbury can respond to its mental health
crisis.
Read more here
Obesity
One in five Bay four year olds overweight or obese
One in five
Bay 4-year-olds are overweight, obese or extremely obese, a new report shows.A Tauranga
dietitian says the obesity rate, described as an epidemic by one health boss,
is "out of control".
Read more here
Patient
safety
Bureaucratic
'Kafkaesque nightmare' burning out hospital doctors - report
Half
of New Zealand's public hospital specialists feel burned-out,
potentially affecting patient care and increasing the risk
of medical errors, a new report says.The
Association of Salaried Medical Specialists (ASMS) published a report on
Friday by Dr Charlotte Chambers that showed a high level of
burnout in hospital doctors.
Read more here
Primary
health care
GP shortage expected to hit rural, poor communities
hardest
General Practitioners (GPs) are warning an acute shortage of
family doctors will hurt poorer areas and rural communities in the near future.
Read more here
GP shortage looming as
nearly half have retirement in their sights
Patients could
soon struggle to find a general practitioner as nearly half the current
workforce plans to retire within the decade.The
pinch is already being felt as GPs are being asked to work beyond
retirement age, and on Monday it was reported that a Porirua after-hours clinic
is facing the possibility of overnight closure because not enough
doctors can be found to staff it.
Read more here
Telehealth
Kiwis first to get new
health diagnostic app
A
new app aims to help people use their smartphone to diagnose their health
problems.
Ada
was first launched in New Zealand last month, with Kiwis the first in the world
get access to the app.The
app, which is free for Apple devices, was released after several years of
clinical research and input from more than 100 doctors.
Read more here
Tobacco,
drugs and alcohol
Dunne launches Fetal
Alcohol Spectrum Disorder action plan
Associate
Health Minister Hon Peter Dunne has launched an action plan today aimed at
better supporting those affected by Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder (FASD), and
reducing the numbers of babies born with this preventable condition.
Read more here
International
news
California docs and hospitals tussle over role of
nurse-midwives
A California bill that would allow certified
nurse-midwives to practice independently is pitting the state’s doctors against
its hospitals, even though both sides support the main goal of the legislation.
Read more here
ER overcrowding: Nurses may hold key to shorter
stays, wait times
Emergency department overcrowding is an ongoing problem that plagues
many hospitals, but organizations may be able to solve the problem by
allowing nurses to treat patients with common conditions.
Read more here
Nurses battle secondary
traumatic stress
Local medical
professionals are speaking out about fighting their own traumatic experiences.
There is now
a special team of medical professionals working together to cope with the
tragic loss of their patients and other heart-wrenching experiences.
Read more here
When nurses can sleep soundly, so can hospital
leaders
Hospitals are working to make it easier for patients
to sleep, but they can
also improve outcomes by giving nurses on late shifts the chance to
nap, argues a column onMedscape Medical News.
Read more here
Articles
of interest
The American Journal
of Public Health
September
2016
Themed
issue on the Nurses Health study
Open access: http://ajph.aphapublications.org/toc/ajph/106/9
Everyone
in public health has heard of the first Nurses’ Health Study (NHS). This cohort
of 121 700 nurses assembled in 1976 has generated a substantial part of what we
know today about women’s health and the prevention of chronic diseases. A
brilliant and competent team of investigators from Harvard University
originated it 40 years ago and have conducted it since then, but as every
epidemiologist knows, wonderful ideas do not necessarily translate into great
studies. The NHS is the encounter of a wonderful idea (i.e., enrolling nurses
in a large cohort study) and the historically outstanding response from nurses,
who made the study theirs. Nurses joined, persisted, and used their unique and
essential skills to make this cohort study an exemplar.
Read More: http://ajph.aphapublications.org/doi/full/10.2105/AJPH.2016.303345
From
the Ministry of Health
Secure Dementia Care Home Design: Information
Resource
This resource supports
people involved with the development or major reconfiguration of secure
dementia care homes. It aims to enhance the quality of life of people with
dementia living in secure care homes by focusing on their experiences and
perspectives.
It provides in-depth
information and research for aged care providers, DHBs and anyone else planning
and designing new builds or reconfiguring secure dementia care homes. The
design principles are relevant to all people living with dementia in both
non-secure and secure care homes. However, this resource is specifically
designed for secure dementia care homes, rather than other (non-secure)
residential aged care built environments.
The resource is based on
information gathered from current research, consultation with key stakeholders
and international guidelines.
Read more here
Funding to Māori health providers by District
Health Boards (DHBs), 2010/11 to 2014/15
This publication summarises
funding to Māori health providers by DHBs and information on Māori health
providers from 2010/11 to 2014/15. DHBs are the primary funders of Māori health
providers. Under legislation, the New Zealand Public Health and Disability Act
2000, DHBs have a responsibility to support Māori involvement in service
delivery. Most DHBs demonstrate this through a wide range of service contracts
to Māori health providers.
Highlights include:
DHBs’ funding to Māori
health providers was $170 million in 2014/15, an increase of $23 million (or
15.6%) since 2010/11
although DHBs’ funding to
Māori health providers is increasing, it remains a small percentage of DHBs’
Crown funding for health services, increasing from 1.46% in 2010/11 to 1.49% in
2014/15
fourteen DHBs increased
their funding to Māori health providers during this time, while six DHBs
decreased their funding to Māori health providers.
Read more here
The above information has been collated for the College
of Nurses Aotearoa (NZ) Inc by Linda Stopforth, SNIPS and is provided on a
weekly basis. It is current as at Tuesday
16 August 2016
If you have any feedback about content - what parts
are most useful or what you would like added - please email admin@nurse.org.nz
For more up
to date news and information follow SNIPS at:
Facebook: Snips Info
twitter: @SnipsInfo
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