Welcome
to the College of Nurses Aotearoa News Update.
No. 279 2 December 2015
From NZ media this week
Healthy outlook
What can
Maori do themselves?
That was the
question posed by Maori health expert Sir Mason Durie during a talk on Maori
health in Tauranga.
Alexandra Macmillan & Rhys Jones: TPP must
not block the path to healthy climate action
The path towards a healthy climate will be a
rocky one in the coming year. December's global negotiations in Paris are a
crucial crossroads for choosing between bold new routes to health through
well-designed climate action or continuing to threaten human survival and
wellbeing. Meanwhile, the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) agreement is about to
add another giant obstacle to progress.
Lack of health focus at Paris Climate talks a
serious concern
The Public
Health Association (PHA) is calling on New Zealand and its delegates to the
United Nations Climate Summit, starting on Monday in Paris, to show courage and
leadership by setting an ambitious goal for the reduction of domestic
greenhouse gas emissions.
DHBs and PHOs
DHBs struggling to cope with increase in type
1 diabetes in children
Jonathan
Spurgeon has to test his blood sugar levels as many as 20 times a day. By doing
this, the 14-year-old by checking his blood constantly he can enjoy a
bit more freedom.
But
it has been a 10-year struggle to get to this point, and mum Karen has chosen
to pay a private GP to work with Jonathan, because she believes the care is far
superior to that provided by her DHB.
Privacy concerns prompt health board to develop
policy on cameras in hospitals
Amid
growing concerns over the privacy of staff and patients, Nelson Marlborough
District Health Board is developing a policy on taking photos, video and audio
recordings in hospitals.
Audit reveals many ED patients had other
options
People urged
to seek advice and save the ED for emergencies
Most people
who go to the Emergency Department at Wairau Hospital for non-emergency matters
don’t seek advice on other options beforehand, a study reveals.
Drugs, alcohol and smoking
The ills of using synthetic cannabis
Synthetic
cannabis has caused a cluster of cases of near-unconsciousness and in one
person seizures, says an emergency doctor who is now warning the public of the
drugs' risks.
Obesity
Auckland doctor quits battle against obesity
after achieving 'nothing'
A
trailblazer in the battle against obesity is giving up her fight after
conceding defeat.
Dr
Robyn Toomath said she had achieved "nothing" since setting up
the Fight the Obesity campaign in 2001
No time to waste in fighting obesity
Aiga
Lama is sporting a broken arm after falling off the monkey bars, but that's not
stopping the five-year-old from chasing a basketball at Otara Leisure Centre.
Patient safety
National Audit highlights safer surgical practices
The 6th National Report of the Australian and
New Zealand Audits of Surgical Mortality (ANZASM) was released today by the
Royal Australasian College of Surgeons (RACS), highlighting a significant drop
in the number of adverse events due to issues with health care.
Public health
Tool to help early detection and management of
Chronic Kidney Disease
Associate
Health Minister Peter Dunne says an electronic decision support tool will help
General Practitioners improve the detection and management of patients with
Chronic Kidney Disease (CKD).
Rheumatic fever campaign focuses on sore throats
The latest
figures show efforts to reduce rheumatic fever are working, with rates in south
Auckland now half what they were.
One of the
drivers behind the drop is a school-based health programme called Mana Kidz.
Flu claimed the lives of five this winter
Three
Aucklanders died of the flu this year, including two children. The deaths
included a 4-year-old boy, a 12-year-old girl and a 77-year-old woman.
Two
others are believed to have died in Wellington and Christchurch.
The Draft NZ Health Strategy: Will it enable New
Zealanders to “live well, stay well and get well”?
The new draft NZ Health Strategy is strong on
strengthening the health care system and has some strong population health
aspects, at least rhetorically. It includes phrases like a system moving “from
treatment to prevention”. But how does it fare when considering the science
around burden of disease and interventions to address the 10 top risk factors
for health loss in NZ? Unfortunately not well at all. There are no population
health goals and minimal evidence of concrete action to address the major preventable
causes of poor health and premature death. In summary, there seems plenty of
scope for upgrading the draft Strategy if it is going to enable New Zealanders
to “live well, stay well and get well”.
https://blogs.otago.ac.nz/pubhealthexpert/2015/12/01/the-draft-nz-health-strategy-will-it-enable-new-zealanders-to-live-well-stay-well-and-get-well/
Social health
Protection teams idea to prevent attacks on
children
Child
abuse expert Dr Patrick Kelly is calling for child protection teams across
the country. Blair Ensor reports as part of the Faces
of Innocents series.
The
Government needs to set up child protection teams at district health boards
across the country if it wants to prevent some of the attacks on society's most
vulnerable, a child abuse expert says.
Homeless baby boomers unless we act soon -
Salvation Army
Tens of thousands of baby boomers risk becoming
homeless in retirement unless the government takes urgent steps to deal with
the problem, a report says.
From International media this week
Hadassah program shown to reduce stress and burnout among hardworking
nurses
A programme to reduce stress and burnout among
nurses, who are prone to high rates of injury and illness leading to
absenteeism, has been proven successful at Hadassah University Medical Center
in Jerusalem’s Ein Kerem, a leading medical journal reports.
Nurse work environment a key driver of performance: 4 findings
A nurse's work environment has as much influence as nurse
staffing on performance across most measures, according to a recent Press Ganey
Holdings report called "Nursing
Special Report: The Influence of Nurse Work Environment on Patient, Payment and
Nurse Outcomes in Acute Care Settings."
Optimal nurse staffing leads to clinical and economic improvements: 5
findings
Healthcare employers looking to achieve quality care, better
patient outcomes and financial stability should view optimal nurse staffing as
a necessity rather than an option — particularly as healthcare reforms and new
regulations take hold, according to a new whitepaper commissioned by the
American Nurses Association and developed by Washington, D.C.-based consulting
firm Avalere Health in collaboration with nurses and policy experts.
Nurse practitioners changed
U.S. health care
Back in the 1960s, while thousands of Americans
were "sitting in" for civil rights and burning draft cards to end the
Vietnam War, one Colorado nurse started a quiet health care revolution.
Articles of interest
The challenge
of consolation: nurses’ experiences with spiritual and existential care for the
dying-a phenomenological hermeneutical study
Tornøe
K, Danbolt L, Kvigne K, Sørlie V
BMC Nursing 2015, 14
:62 (24 November 2015)
A majority of people in Western Europe and the USA die in
hospitals. Spiritual and existential care is seen to be an integral component
of holistic, compassionate and comprehensive palliative care. Yet, several
studies show that many nurses are anxious and uncertain about engaging in
spiritual and existential care for the dying. The aim of this study is to
describe nurses’ experiences with spiritual and existential care for dying
patients in a general hospital.
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