Welcome to the College of Nurses Aotearoa News Update.
No. 365 Wednesday 13 September 2017
NATIONAL NEWS
Becoming Kiwi: Nursing dream realised after move to the provinces
Becoming Kiwi is a five-part series of migration stories, from people who now call Taranaki home.
As Alex Antony was getting to grips with life in provincial New Zealand, he was also getting to know his new wife.
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Government promises new mental health facility for Canterbury
The Government has announced a new specialist mental health facility will be built in Canterbury within three years. The purpose-built facility, at Christchurch's Hillmorton Hospital campus, will accommodate patients and staff from child and youth, eating disorders, mothers and babies and long term rehabilitation units left stranded at the derelict Princess Margaret Hospital (PMH).
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Fun app for learning te reo health terms
Unsure what 'hot', 'sore' or 'unwell' is in te reo? Then a new game app for teaching common health terms used in Māori could be for you.
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CANCER ISSUES
New blood test for melanoma
Early stage melanoma may soon be identified by a simple and inexpensive blood test, a gathering of experts in the research and treatment of melanoma being held in Queenstown heard today.
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Predictive tool to help manage New Zealand’s melanoma crisis
A melanoma expert says a tool for general practitioners that uses just eight primary factors to predict people’s risk of developing a melanoma could identify 80 percent of melanomas and reduce deaths from the disease.
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HEALTH FUNDING AND RESEARCH
Northland District Health Board underfunded by almost $30m - CEO
Northland District Health Board is holding back its annual report to the Government as chief executive Nick Chamberlain battles a financial crisis amounting to a $7.5 million deficit this year after underfunding of almost $30m over three years.
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HEALTH PROMOTION
Health promotion improves students' reading
A Government programme promoting health in schools has seen reading levels improve almost 30 per cent and attendance jump 60 per cent.
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HEART DISEASE
Canterbury quake damage raised heart attack risk
Canterbury residents living in quake-damaged homes were put at higher risk of heart attack, a new data-crunching study has found.
Read more here
MENTAL HEALTH
What the first person to lead the Mental Health Commission says about fixing the system
Newspaper headlines from 20 years ago look surprisingly familiar ("Mental Health’s Revolving Door", "The Depressing State of Mental Health", "Conveyer Belt to Psychiatric Ruin").In 1996, after a damning review, the government of the day established a Mental Health Commission to independently monitor mental health services.
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Does any political party have a good mental health policy?
Ten years ago, when Labour was in charge, I was 14 and losing grip with reality fast.
My parents took me to a counsellor and paid for a session but I was beyond her expertise so we were fast-tracked to Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services (CAMHS) in Hamilton. I recently requested my notes from that time under the Privacy Act, and there in writing is a damning indictment for anyone who thinks National is solely to blame for the current mental health crisis: “Jess faces a six month wait.”
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Insight: NZ's Mental Health at Breaking Point
Mental illness is on the rise. In the last two years, the number of people seen by a GP with a diagnosed mental health issue has increased by 22 percent. And it's expected to get worse. The World Health Organisation predicts that depression will be the second leading cause of disability in the world by 2020. What are New Zealand's services doing to keep up?
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OBESITY / SUGAR TAX
Growth charts for NZ children to undergo mobile makeover
A novel interactive growth chart for babies and young children is being developed in a bid to help tackle childhood obesity in New Zealand.
Research initiative Precision Driven Health has combined with leading child health research funder Cure Kids and the National Science Challenge A Better Start to develop and trial an interactive child growth chart.
Read more here
SOCIAL HEALTH
Study of 450 Wellington children finds mouldy, leaky homes cause asthma
Damp, mouldy, and leaky homes don't just make asthma worse, but likely cause the disorder.
Those are the findings of a newly-released study conducted on 450 children across the Wellington Region.
Read more here
INTERNATIONAL NEWS
Leadership key to post-acute care nurse residents
For a post-acute care nurse residency program to take off, effective nurse leaders must take charge.
When the New Jersey Action Coalition launched its nurse residency program, it became clear that without a strong nursing leader at the front of the program, it lost a key advocate and a major pillar of participant support, Katherine Kuren Black, R.N., clinical assistant professor at Rutgers School of Nursing, who also works in the program, writes in a column for MedPage Today.
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Study supports nurses as key contributors to hospital patients' satisfaction with pain control
Hospital patients' satisfaction with pain management is linked to nurse staffing, according to an article authored by nurse researchers from the Connell School of Nursing at Boston College and published in the journal Pain Management Nursing "Findings from this study support nurses as key contributors to patient satisfaction with pain control," said Connell School of Nursing Associate Professor Judith Shindul-Rothschild, the lead author of the article, "Beyond the Pain Scale: Provider Communication and Staffing Predictive of Patients' Satisfaction with Pain Control."
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Special program enables nurses to better prepare for providing palliative care
Critical care nurses at five University of California medical centers are better prepared to lead primary palliative care at the bedside after participating in a special training and mentoring program.
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WORKPLACE
7 things nurses should never do in front of patients
Nursing is a job that doesn't just require a good deal of medical training — it also calls for a bedside manner that will put patients’ minds at ease in the most harrowing circumstances.
Good nurses know what to do and say no matter what the situation. The very best nurses also know what they should never, ever do under any circumstances.
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WELLBEING
Meditative Walking and the Importance of Self-Care
During my 38-year career in nursing practice I have been privileged to work at the bedside, in the classroom, and as a nurse researcher. I am one of those nurses who believes that nursing is in my genes!
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ARTICLES OF INTEREST
Evidence-based approaches to breaking down language barriers
Nursing2017 September 2017, Volume 47 Number 9 , p 34 - 40
LANGUAGE BARRIERS between nurses and patients increasingly affect nursing practice, regardless of where care is delivered. In the United States, a language other than English is now spoken at home in one of five households, the highest level since just after World War I.1 Patients with limited English skills are referred to as patients with limited English proficiency (LEP).
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A post-master's advanced certificate in gerontology for NPs
Abstract: This article describes an innovative post-master's advanced certificate in gerontology program developed by the Hartford Institute for Geriatric Nursing at the New York University Rory Meyers College of Nursing. The program provides advanced practice registered nurses geriatric content to meet eligibility criteria for the Adult-Gerontology Primary Care NP certification exam and develops interprofessional care providers to care for complex older adults.
Read more here
FROM THE MINISTRY OF HEALTH
Increased Deceased Organ Donation and Transplantation: Towards a national strategy
Increasing Deceased Organ Donation and Transplantation: Towards a National Strategy was prepared by the sector working group that advised on the recently published National Strategy.
The document provides supplementary detail supporting the Strategy. It sets out in detail the reasons a strategy is required and why the priority actions were chosen.
The next step in implementing the Strategy is establishing the National Agency (Strategic Priority 5), which will then be responsible for driving progress on the Strategy. The Ministry is working through options for the agency, with a particular focus on ensuring the excellent service currently provided by Organ Donation New Zealand is not interrupted.
Read more here
FROM THE NURSING COUNCIL
The August edition of our newsletter is now available
newsletter August 2017 (PDF, 185 KB)
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 12 September 2017
If you have any feedback about content - what parts are most useful or what you would like added - please email admin@nurse.org.nz
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