Welcome to the College of Nurses Aotearoa News Update.
No. 562, Wednesday 29 September 2021
Weekly news round-up of nursing and health information in New Zealand and internationally
NATIONAL NEWS
Health New Zealand and Māori Health Authority board members announced
The Government has announced the interim boards of Health New Zealand and the Māori Health Authority.
Nurse, union voice absent on new health authority boards - NZNO
The New Zealand Nurses Organisaton's (NZNO) Kaiwhakahaere, Kerri Nuku, is concerned that the Maori Health Authority (MHA) and Health New Zealand (Health NZ) boards lack representation for nurses, kaimahi hauora, midwives, rongoÄ practitioners or health care assistants, as well as any clear union presence.
Nurses offered $13,000 pay raise from DHBs, warning signs proposed when under staffed ...
Nurses will this week start discussing a new pay offer from district health boards, which puts forward more than $13,000 extra for each member.
Hawke's Bay ED nurses say 'dangerous' conditions puts patients at risk | 1 NEWS | TVNZ
The New Zealand Nurses Organisation said it supported staff at Hawke's Bay Fallen Soldiers' Memorial Hospital to issue the PIN. The NZNO said "repeated attempts ...
Calls for streamlined process to get health workers into NZ | 1 NEWS | TVNZ
A more streamlined approach to getting much-needed health workers into New Zealand amid Covid-19 is needed, advocates and recruiters say.
Closed borders mean ICU capacity can't increase due to nurses shortage - Newstalk ZB
Closed borders are making it difficult for our hospitals to bring on internationally sought-after nurses to increase ICU capacity.
Covid 19 Delta outbreak: 'Unwelcome' nurses leaving NZ over immigration rules - NZ Herald
New Zealand Herald
The NZ Nurses Organisation has written to Immigration Minister Kris Faafoi asking for urgent reform to help fill a "critical shortage" of nurses, ...
Young Male Pasifika Nurse's Inspiring Work Recognised | Scoop News
The New Zealand Nurses Organisation's (NZNO's) annual Young Nurse of the Year Award was presented to Daniel Mataafa at the organisation's online Annual ...
NZNO Award Of Honour Recognises Invaluable Enrolled Nurse Leader - Scoop NZ
The New Zealand Nurses Organisation (NZNO) is pleased to announce that the 2021 NZNO Award of Honour (presented every two years) has been awarded to ...
Westland nurse recognised 'for commitment to oncology and palliative care'
The 2021 New Zealand Nurses Organisation (NZNO) Award for Service to Nursing or Midwifery was presented at the virtual NZNO AGM on 16 September. This award recognises nurses or midwives who have made a difference to their area of practice at a national level.
Care Packs for Patients make hospital stays more comfortable | Voxy.co.nz
Care Packs for Patients make hospital stays more comfortable For the thousands of patients that come through Tauranga Hospital’s doors each year, there’s a story that usually involves accidents, illness, and a whole lot of care from dedicated doctors and nurses.
INTERNATIONAL NEWS
International Council of Nurses publishes Guidelines on Prescriptive Authority for Nurses
ICN calls on governments to ensure appropriate levels of education and regulation of nursing are in place to expand nurse prescribing
Quebec to offer nurses bonuses of up to $18K to end staffing crisis | CBC News
Province hopes its plan, which will cost $1B, will attract 4,300 nurses back to public system.
Associations between nurses' well-being, workplace wellness cultures and shift length ...
The study was published online ahead-of-print in Nursing Administration Quarterly. "Clinician burnout and mental health problems were an epidemic in nurses and ...
Nurses Are In Short Supply. Employers Worry Vaccine Mandate Could Make It Worse - NPR
Of her 261 nurses and therapists, 56 have declined to get the vaccine. ... and among some subgroups of health care workers such as nursing assistants.
Overseas-trained nurses face bureaucratic roadblock to work amid NSW Covid crisis - The Guardian
Exclusive: ‘It is a real warzone and I am sitting at home, numb and helpless, having a vast experience in critical care,’ says one Colombian nurse
Immigrant nurses in B.C. say language proficiency tests a barrier to practice | CBC News
Some internationally educated nurses in B.C. say the language proficiency requirement to become a registered nurse is an unnecessary barrier forcing them to ...
AGED CARE AND ELDERLY
'Urgent action' needed to address challenges facing people with dementia | Stuff.co.nz
The beds are full in most dementia care units in Southland and more people are waiting to get in.
But one Invercargill provider has left eight of its 24 beds empty because it has not got enough staff to look after a full complement of residents.
Rest home fails to recognise delirium and provide pain relief to elderly woman
Deputy Health and Disability Commissioner Rose Wall today released a report finding a rest home in breach of the Code of Health and Disability Services Consumers’ Rights (the Code) for failures in the care of a woman in her nineties.
Aged residential care reaching 'tipping point', DHB boss says | Stuff.co.nz
The aged care nursing shortage in Southland is deepening, with little light on the horizon while New Zealand's borders remain shut. A health board boss says the ...
CANCER NEWS
Confused claims of Covid-compromised cancer care
A new campaign is urging people with possible symptoms of cancer to get a diagnosis - and never mind the lockdown. This week two media outlets claimed 'almost half of new cancers' went undetected because of the Covid lockdowns last year - and it could be happening again now. Is it? Read more
CHILDREN AND YOUNG PEOPLE
Momentum slows in reducing child mortality rates; significant inequity found
Efforts to reduce the number of children and young people dying appear to have stagnated.
COVID-19 / CORONAVIRUS
Growing MIQ capacity a challenge but doable, experts say
Tens of thousands of Kiwis will be vying for the 3000 managed isolation and quarantine rooms due to be released through Government’s new booking system on Tuesday evening.
Covid-19: ICU staff plead for Kiwis to be vaccinated amid bed, nurse shortage
Intensive care specialists say New Zealand's ICUs would struggle with Covid-19 even with high vaccination rates due to a shortage of beds and staff.
Covid-19: Niue TikTok challenge aims to encourage vaccination at Auckland pop-up event
A Pacific community is using a TikTok challenge to encourage young people to get vaccinated as part of a three-day drive-through event in south Auckland.
Covid-19 Delta outbreak: Push for mandatory vaccination for key health workers - NZ Herald
Key healthcare workers could be forced into getting vaccinated in the latest move by officials considering how best to control future Covid-19 outbreaks.
Covid-19: What would a 90 per cent vaccination rate mean for New Zealand? | Stuff.co.nz
College of Critical Care Nurses vice chairperson Steve Kirby said New Zealand's health system had limited resources and capacity, making it “very vulnerable ...
Covid-19: Employees' vaccination status set to pit human rights against workplace safety
Workplaces across the country are turning a corner into a Covid-19 vaccination conflict that will pit human rights against workplace safety.
Wāhine Māori tackling Covid-19: ‘When you see who’s doing the mahi, we’re all brown’
As New Zealand's alert levels went up, so did the gazebos outside Turuki Healthcare; bright white points against a royal blue facade.
Lockdown has transformed the Māngere street corner into a “Moroccan oasis”, laughs chief executive Te Puea Winiata (Ngāti Ranginui, Ngāi te Rangi). Palm fronds scrape the white plastic. A flag in pandemic-yellow stripes disrupts the illusion: ‘Covid tests here’.
Doctors rally to help Pasifika families in isolation
A group of doctors have hit the phones to support Pasifika families who have tested positive for Covid-19 and been transferred into managed isolation.
An Equal Shot
Māori and Pasifika communities are among the most vulnerable to the highly transmissable Covid variant Delta, which has now hit our shores. Even as the vaccination rollout gathers pace nationwide, why are their numbers lagging so far behind?
Covid-19: 78% of community cases in Delta outbreak had not been vaccinated
The vast majority of Covid-19 community cases linked to the Delta outbreak had not received the vaccine when they were infected.
DHBs
'Fresh blood' needed to ensure Health New Zealand lives up to potential
ANALYSIS: Health New Zealand will employ 80,000 staff when it replaces the country’s 20 district health boards in July, Health Ministry deputy director Shayne Hunter says.
DHBs call for urgent overhaul of laws to tackle NZ's 'British drinking culture'
District health boards say liquor laws are failing New Zealanders and are calling for an urgent overhaul, suggesting shorter trading hours, minimum unit prices and giving effect to te Tiriti O Waitangi.
Auditor-general to investigate whether DHBs are appropriately using 'ring-fenced' funding on mental health services
The Government has asked the auditor-general to investigate whether a portion of money reserved for mental health services is actually being spent on other areas by District Health Boards (DHBs).
Hospital ED conditions 'perfect climate' for death or serious injury
Conditions at Hawke’s Bay Hospital’s emergency department are dire and have created the “perfect climate” for the death or serious injury of a patient, staff say.
HEALTH IN/EQUITY
Māori will take a century to catch up with Pākehā for life expectancy, new report finds
It will be 100 years before Māori life expectancy catches up with Pākehā while the wealthiest 10 per cent of New Zealanders can expect to live a decade longer than the poorest 10 per cent, new research has found.
PASIFIKA HEALTH
Dianne Sika-Paotonu: The duty to act
It’s likely you’ll be seeing a lot more of Dr Dianne Sika-Paotonu, the associate dean (Pacific) at Otago University in Wellington — especially with Covid dominating the news. She’s an immunologist and biomedical scientist who’s been taking on two major scourges that, for generations, have been robbing many of us and our whānau of health and life. One is cancer in its many forms. Another is rheumatic heart disease. Read more
ONLINE JOURNALS
Health Times
5M Australians impacted by suicide during COVID-19
What is digital mental health nursing?
Childhood mental health - the impact of increased exposure to depression
Compelling case for nurse psychotherapists
ARTICLES OF INTEREST
The experience of nurses deployed out of their clinical specialty role during the COVID-19 pandemic,
Griffis, Leigh DNP, RN, CPN, NEA-BC; Tanzi, Donna PhD(c), MPS, RN, NE-BC, NPD-BC; Kanner, Kimberly MSN, RN, OCN; Knoepffler, Susan MPA, BSN, RN, NE-BC
Nursing Management (Springhouse): September 2021 - Volume 52 - Issue 9 - p 6-10 doi: 10.1097/01.NUMA.0000771772.25770.c7
When the COVID-19 pandemic hit the US in January 2020, the precipitous rate of infections overwhelmed hospitals and the medical community at large.1 Resources, such as nursing staff, were stretched beyond any previous experience.1 The data are still changing but as of June 2021, the total cases in the US were over 33 million, with more than 590,000 deaths.1 To meet the needs of caring for the vast number of COVID-positive patients, hospitals designed COVID units, which caused many nurses to change their roles.
The article below is not freely available but may be accessed through databases and libraries to which readers have access
Describing precisely what nurses do.
Halloran, EJ, Halloran, DC.
Nurs Forum. 2021; 56: 619– 622. https://doi.org/10.1111/nuf.12569
Numerous important papers written by nurses and other scientists to improve nursing practice are not read by many nurses because two of the common ways authors use to describe what nurses do obscures the applicability of studies to nurses in general. Interventions (aka, procedures, skills, tasks) used and populations studied, including diseases, are less robust indicators of research results than are tests of nursing theory. Further, some of these important papers are not stored in or retrieved by accessing the Cumulative Index of Nursing and Allied Health Literature database. We believe many research papers by nurses and those who study nursing would benefit from an explicit rather than implicit test of nursing theory and we advise authors use Henderson's theoretical textbook because of its link to research and expert opinion professional literature. Significant papers should be reversely cited in her textbook to place them in the context of the knowledge of nursing she recorded for much of the 20th century.
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 of 28 September 2021
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
Back to blog entries
Menu