Welcome to the College of Nurses Aotearoa News Update.
No. 384, Wednesday 14 February 2018
NATIONAL NEWS
Blow for NPs at finding one major barrier remains
Nurse practitioners are expressing frustration at discovering that a long-awaited law change still doesn’t allow them to complete all the paperwork at a patient’s death.
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You want a taxpayer salary in our public hospitals? Get a flu jab or get another job
OPINION: It started with a cough. Katie van de Pas might have just put up with it, but she was 34 weeks pregnant so she popped into a medical centre to get it checked out.
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Private surgical hospitals propose plan to cut surgery waits
Private sector hospitals are calling for a formal partnership with government to help meet the unmet demand for elective surgeries.
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Demand for portable units to help hospitals increasing - Mobile Health
The demand for portable operating departments to ease hospital surgical strain is growing substantially, Mobile Health chief executive Mark Eager says.
Over the Christmas break, Mobile Health’s surgical bus unit was busy working in Auckland at the Counties District Health Board as an extra theatre helping them to get through their elective surgery lists, Eager says.
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The acute case for new hospitals
OPINION: All of us need good hospitals near us so that when accidents happen or we get sick, we can access both acute and planned healthcare provided by well-trained doctors and nurses working in modern facilities.
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Whanganui health board reports 86 staff injuries in six months
Eighty-six injures were reported by Whanganui District Health Board's staff in the six months to December, 18 from assaults by patients.
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How to get the most from Māori health providers
What lies beyond the new Labour government’s ‘first 100 days’ for health policy and outcomes for Māori? In part five of our series on the future of Māori health, former Ministry of Health advisor and policy analyst Gabrielle Baker looks at what we should expect from Māori health providers and how to get them where they need to be.
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CANCER ISSUES
New research on women with cancer involved in the 'unfortunate experiment'
A new report on gynaecologist Dr Herbert Green's "unfortunate experiment" has described the medical experience of 82 women with microinvasive cancer.
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National Bowel Screening Programme to be reviewed - Clark
Minister of Health Dr David Clark has ordered an independent review of the National Bowel Screening Programme.
The free screening programme is being rolled-out in stages around the country, with three DHBs currently on board. It is due to be in place nationwide by mid-2021.
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CHILD AND MATERNAL HEALTH
Number of children missing out on doctor visits because of cost has dropped
The number of children whose parents cannot afford to send them to the doctor when they are sick has more than halved in the past four years.
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DIABETES
Community Exercise and education for long-term management of diabetes and multi-morbidity
The School of Physiotherapy have been running a Community Exercise Programme for people with type II diabetes for many years now. We are excited to announce that we have recently secured a substantial Health Research Council grant to formally investigate the effectiveness (including cost-effectiveness) of our Diabetes Community Exercise and education Programme (DCEP) in a randomised control trial (RCT) that will run in both Dunedin and Invercargill over two years.
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INFECTION CONTROL
Spike in drug-resistant infections forces National Burns Centre at Middlemore to limit admissions
The National Burns Centre at Middlemore Hospital has had to limit patient admissions following several cases of drug-resistant infections.
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Quadrivalent vaccine against influenza to be funded in NZ
The influenza vaccine used in New Zealand this year will include protection against infection with four strains of the virus.
This will be the first time a four-strain vaccine, known as quadrivalent vaccine, will be funded in New Zealand.
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Superbug spread spurs call for hospitals to act like biosecurity border control
Five patients from Auckland's Middlemore Hospital have been found to have strains of a life-threatening superbug since December.
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Dozens of dengue fever cases reported in NZ each week, and more than 100 since November
Dozens of people holidaying in the Pacific are returning home with dengue fever, with more than 100 cases being notified to health authorities in the last month.
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Emma Espiner: Lessons from a pandemic
Emma Espiner looks at how a pandemic like the 1918 influenza virus might play out in New Zealand in 2018
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INJURY PREVENTION
Social cost of road crashes up 7.8 per cent to $4.17 billion
The Automobile Association wants state highways with low safety ratings to be urgently improved, as a new report puts the social cost of road crashes at $4.17 billion in just one year.
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MENTAL HEALTH
Government confirms $100m mental health initiatives under review
The Government has confirmed it is reviewing what to do with $100 million informally tagged to 17 mental health initiatives, following a political spat over whether the money existed.
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OBESITY / SUGAR TAX
Could a Green Prescription be the answer to NZ's obesity crisis?
There’s no need to wait for your GP to steer you towards a more healthy lifestyle.
It’s been 20 years since the Green Prescription was introduced in New Zealand, a period during which we’ve seen a steep rise in lifestyle-related problems such as obesity and type 2 diabetes. But that doesn’t mean the physical activity and health education programme hasn’t been having an effect.
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PATIENT SAFETY
Kiwi open-heart surgery patients at small risk of infection
Thousands of Kiwis who had open-heart surgery face a small, but serious risk of infection, due to a potentially contaminated device used in their procedure.
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PHARMACY
Pharmac to widen access to HIV drug
People with a high risk of HIV have been granted access to a preventative treatment, the government's drug buying agency Pharmac has annnounced.
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PUBLIC HEALTH
Vaccines expert: 'Humans have a very poor understanding of risk'
A world-renowned expert in infectious diseases says there's no one-size-fits-all solution for convincing anti-vaxxers to give up their cherished beliefs and get their kids immunised - but banning unvaccinated kids from school in his home state of California has clearly been successful.
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Third vaccine dose needed to protect young NZers from mumps
Urgent proactive action is needed to protect young people from the current mumps outbreak in New Zealand, says Dr Ayesha Verrall, an infectious diseases physician and researcher at the University of Otago, Wellington,
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SOCIAL HEALTH
New Zealand 'a society divided by wealth': new housing report
Housing Minister Phil Twyford has released a "sobering" stocktake on housing which has found homelessness was worse than thought and there was a growing "floating" population of people in insecure housing.
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Doctor presents link between childhood poverty and gambling
Former New Zealander of the year Dr Lance O’Sullivan will present a key note speech at the International Gambling Conference next week, highlighting the relationship between gambling and the day to day work of a GP in a community affected by diseases of poverty.
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TELEHEALTH AND E-HEALTH
Patients in control of own healthcare the future, says GP
Patients managing their own healthcare online is the future says a Bay of Plenty GP, and the future is here.
Dr Marshall Hollister-Jones, of Tauranga’s Chadwick Healthcare, says his practice has been offering the ManageMyHealth website (by which patients can access their personal health records) for five years.
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Online doctor business launch 'an uphill battle' - is NZ behind on telehealth?
Samantha Bailey came up with her online GP idea on a busy Waitangi weekend shift at Christchurch's after hours clinic.A woman had been waiting three hours for a prescription, which was sorted in a couple of minutes
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TOBACCO, DRUGS AND ALCOHOL
Switching to vaping not always straightforward: Otago Research
Smokers attempting to quit the habit by vaping or using e-cigarettes do not always find the process plain sailing, according to new University of Otago research published in the international journal, Tobacco Control.
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INTERNATIONAL NEWS
Care sector: 'Short of nurses and other key staff'
Low rates of pay and workload pressures mean care services can no longer fill key posts in England, a watchdog says.
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ARTICLES OF INTEREST
Editorial Brownie, S. M. (2018), The economic impact of nursing. J Clin Nurs. doi:10.1111/jocn.14182
Economics includes “the condition of a region or group as regards material prosperity” (Oxford Dictionaries, 2017). The links between material prosperity versus poverty, health status and quality of life are well documented as are the devastating impacts of population disparities on the aforementioned indicators (Association of State and Territorial Health Officials, 2012). Poor health affects the ability of people to work, generate income and care for their families—a widely understood conundrum. In short, economic position impacts health status, and health status impacts economic prosperity. Thus, matters of socioeconomic status and population health issues are of major interest and challenge for governments and policymakers (Fonseca, 2011; Smith, 1999). Poverty with associated population health disparities is particularly troublesome, vexing governments and policymakers globally and in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) in particular. Healthcare access impacts almost every human indicator including maternal/child mortality rates, rates of preventable infectious and noncommunicable disease, employability, gender equality, workforce productivity, trends in mortality rates and more (Ubri & Artiga, 2016). The issue of ageing populations further compounds issues.
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Designing simulation learning experiences to reduce technological burden on nursing academics: a discussion paper
THE AUSTRALIAN JOURNAL OF ADVANCED NURSING
VOLUME 35 ISSUE 2, 2018
The literature reports nursing academics avoid manikin-based simulation because they feel intimidated by the technology. With that in mind we sought to design a manikin-based simulation learning experience for nursing students, with low technological burden for those nursing academics expected to work with the technology.
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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 13 February 2018
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