Welcome to the College of Nurses Aotearoa News Update.
No. 333 1 February 2017
NATIONAL NEWS
An insight into the life of a Plunket nurse
Plunket has today launched an interview series that reveals the challenges and rewards of life as a Plunket nurse.
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Whanganui prison nurse makes her mark
Whanganui prison nurse Te Rina Lind has won the Marie Jarden Memorial Award for the most professional nursing graduate.
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'Leading my father where I didn’t want him to go'
He would look into the distance, his British accent thickening with echoes of his childhood – and I would cringe in advance, in case the tale revealed some of his generation's casual verbal racism, so contrary to how he lived his life.
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NZ doctors warned about using 'freak show' phone app to share photos of patients
New Zealand doctors and medical students have been downloading an app that allows sharing of "freak show" photographs of patients for medical purposes.
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CANCER ISSUES
Turning around NZ's alarming melanoma rates (Radio NZ)
New Zealand is unfortunately now recorded as having the highest melanoma rates in the world - overtaking Australia. Tony Reeder is associate professor and co-director of Cancer Society Social and Behavioural Unit at Otago University.
Listen here
HEART DISEASE
War on heart disease stalls: Kiwi deaths increase for first time in 50 years
North Canterbury farmer Scott Anderson,46, is among a growing number of Kiwis with heart disease and is extremely fortunate to have dodged a premature death.
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HEALTH FUNDING AND RESEARCH
Multi-million dollar fund for innovative child health research launched
A multi-million dollar funding pool to foster research that delivers tangible benefits to New Zealand children and their families was launched today.
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MENTAL HEALTH
Disgust at mental health care conditions at Christchurch's Princess Margaret Hospital
The Canterbury District Health Board (CDHB) has acknowledged conditions at a mental health inpatient clinic are "not appropriate", but says the alternative is "a lot worse".
Marcelle Lunam was so shocked after visiting her 51-year-old brother at Princess Margaret Hospital's (PMH) Seager clinic that the family decided to pull him out.
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Wellington mental health services criticised after five patient attacks in 15 months
A highly-critical report says Wellington's public mental health services need to change after five patients were involved in attacks - four of them fatal - in 15 months.
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OBESITY
St John gets electric stretchers as obese patients double
St John is rolling out a new fleet of ambulances to prevent paramedics from getting injured when helping heavy patients.
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ORGAN DONATION
National organ donation review result due mid-2017 amid calls for opt out system
When Katie Tookey was six weeks old, doctors told her family she wouldn't live past
her first birthday without a new liver.
She turns 16 this year, and she's still waiting.
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INTERNATIONAL NEWS
NMC confirms it will regulate nursing associates
The Nursing and Midwifery Council (NMC) will take on responsibility for regulating nursing associates, it confirmed today.
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'Utterly impossible': Why vaccinating nurses might not be that effective
Controversial “vaccinate or mask” policies that force nurses to get a flu shot, or wear a surgical face mask for the entire flu season, are based on flimsy science that lacks credibility, according to new analysis.
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Nursing students say new entry exam is failing them; only 27 per cent of Francophone students pass
Canadian Nursing Students' Association says overall pass rate has dropped 20% since American exam introduced
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Survey: 1 in 5 nurses would not pursue career again
Though a majority of nurses said they were glad they entered the field, according to a new survey, about 1 in 5 added they probably would choose a different career if given a chance to do it again.
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World 'underprepared' to handle disease outbreaks
World health leaders are still “grossly underprepared” to handle infectious disease outbreaks, and a group of experts warn in a new study that such outbreaks are likely to become more common in the coming years.
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WORKPLACE
How Rudeness Stops People from Working Together
Incivility can fracture a team, destroying collaboration, splintering members’ sense of psychological safety, and hampering team effectiveness. Belittling and demeaning comments, insults, backbiting, and other rude behavior can deflate confidence, sink trust, and erode helpfulness — even for those who aren’t the target of these behaviors.
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Talking leadership: Fiona Greenfield on developing compassionate leadership through mindfulness
Since its launch in 2014, The King’s Fund’s Developing compassionate leadership through mindfulness programme has attracted a mix of clinical and non-clinical managers across health and social care. The programme was launched following publication of The King’s Fund and Center for Creative Leadership’s Developing collective leadership for health care report, which showed how organisations can develop cultures that enable staff to take collective responsibility for delivering high-quality compassionate care. We spoke to Fiona Greenfield, an experienced nurse who recently took part in the programme.
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WELLBEING
Identify Stress and Vicarious, Secondary, Indirect Trauma in Nurses
The relationship between a healthcare professional and their patient is often very close, and this proximity can expose staff to the distress and trauma experienced by patients. Nurse caseloads can often include patients who have been affected by trauma, violence, abuse, death, and fear, combined with a myriad of other physical and mental health issues.
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ARTICLES OF INTEREST
Bacterial contamination of nurses' white coats after first and second shift
American Journal of Infection Control Volume 45, Issue 1, Pages 86–88
Microbes can survive on textiles for 1-90 days1 and may cause infections in a health care facility by transferring from nurses' gowns to patients.2 Traditionally, the white coats worn by nurses in India were made from cotton, but now they are made from 100% polyester or a blend of cotton and polyester. Typically, a nurse wears the coat for 2 consecutive shifts before taking it home for laundering. This study was undertaken to study the effect of duration of use and the type of fabric on the level of contamination on nurses' coats.
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Implementation of evidence on the nurse-patient relationship in psychiatric wards through a mixed method design: study protocol
BMC Nursing BMC series – open, inclusive and trusted 201716:1
Psychiatric nurses are aware of the importance of the therapeutic relationship in psychiatric units. Nevertheless, a review of the scientific evidence indicates that theoretical knowledge alone is insufficient to establish an adequate therapeutic alliance. Therefore, strategies are required to promote changes to enhance the establishment of the working relationship. The aims of the study are to generate changes in how nurses establish the therapeutic relationship in acute psychiatric units, based on participative action research and to evaluate the effectiveness of the implementation of evidence through this method.
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Improving health literacy in patients with diabetes
LIMITED HEALTH LITERACY and lack of basic math skills (numeracy) are more pervasive problems than many nurses suspect. Combine these limitations with a largely self-managed chronic disease such as diabetes and the possible complications—such as severe hypoglycemia—can be catastrophic. In diabetes, use of high-risk drugs such as sulfonylureas and insulin require additional patient understanding to prevent admissions for hypoglycemia and overuse of hospital resource
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 31 January 2017
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