Latest Nursing News

Signatures are being gathered in the town of McKinlay to protest against a funding cut which could see the loss of the community's only nurse. The Queensland Government has cut $100,000 from Central and North West Medicare Local's budget, which contributed to the employment of a bush nurse.

RECRUITMENT for graduate nurses interested in positions with the Department of Health and Human Services begins next month. An information session for the positions will be held today at the Launceston General Hospital lecture theatre level two, from 2.30pm to 3.30pm.

Wollongong will serve as the backdrop for a training video developed by the World Health Organisation to educate nurses on how to screen patients for alcohol and other drug use. Shellharbour TAFE, Alibi Bar in Wollongong and the Illawarra escarpment all feature in the video, which was shot by a Wollongong film crew.

Nurses are more diligent about hospital hand hygiene than doctors, according to international research by an Australian professor. The research shows health workers are endangering patients by missing one in three opportunities to wash their hands, and doctors are the worst performers, says co-author Professor Mary-Louise McLaws.

The nurses union says a reduction in elective surgery has had an immediate effect at the Flinders Medical Centre, easing pressure on the hospital's emergency department. Elective surgery admissions were reduced to help free up beds after complaints that emergency patients were being treated in waiting rooms, hallways and between double-sliding doors.

A growing population and urbanization are placing increased the strain on hospital emergency departments, many of which are not equipped to handle the number of admissions they receive. In South Australia, the Flinders Medical Centre and the Royal Adelaide Hospital have long been experiencing overcrowding in emergency wards. The nurses union recently met with SA health to discuss measures to resolve the issue.

FLINDERS Medical Centre nurses will hold a stopwork meeting today amid unease over continuing pressure on its emergency department. The Australian Nursing and Midwifery Federation (ANMF) will meet at 3pm with a warning that industrial action will proceed if the government has reneged on promises to ease the pressure.

Combining intensive nursing studies with a holiday in picturesque Noosa might seem unconventional, but it’s the perfect prescription for an enterprising CQUniversity student from Tasmania. Mother of two Angela Schofield has joined a rising wave of educational tourism that sees students from all over Australia drawn to the Sunshine Coast’s sun, surf and stunning surrounds.

THE Border Regional Cancer Centre was yesterday allocated two care co-ordinators, crucial for patient treatment. The federal Health Minister Tanya Plibersek said Labor would spend $15 million to provide 34 cancer care co-ordinators at the 26 regional cancer centres. One of the Border nurses will be based at the cancer centre, and the other at the Albury-Wodonga Patient and Carer Accommodation Centre.

Toowoomba nurse educator Robert Timmings is one of Australia's most "inspiring." We all know nurses I'll be unsung heroes of the medical world. In city hospitals .. they do the work that nobody else wants to do .. as well as keeping patient morale high. But in regional hospitals they're often at the frontline of medical practice .. usually the first person a patient sees at a local hospital or clinic. ^[audio]