Latest Nursing News

Whether you’re a registered nurse with a desire to move into midwifery, a secondary student or someone with life experience setting your sights on a career in midwifery, there’s a course to suit. It is Caron Spurway’s life-long dream to become a midwife. A mum of nine, the Queenslander had to put her dreams on hold while she focused on raising her young family and also supported her husband, Wayne, in running their first aid training business.

A former midwife present at homebirths in which four babies died could be fined and banned from practising under disciplinary action launched by the Nursing and Midwifery Board. Documents obtained by ABC News show former midwife Lisa Barrett is accused of professional misconduct damaging to the reputation of the midwifery profession.

IF the health system is a safety net waiting to catch you when you fall, Judy Bagg is one of the people holding up the corners. She personifies the new breed of country health professional: a team player with patients’ wellbeing at heart, able to draw upon specialist services to solve every riddle the human body might supply. Judy became Murray Bridge Soldiers’ Memorial Hospital’s first nurse practitioner four years ago.

Concern about a lack of care in some nursing homes has prompted the formation of a new committee in the Riverina to lift standards. An ABC Lateline program recently aired disturbing concerns about the care of relatives of elderly people in nursing homes and aged care facilities.

GOLD Coast nurses say they will continue to walk off the job at least once a week until their demands are met over forced roster restructures. Many local nurses who have worked the same shifts for more than a decade will soon be forced to make themselves available 24 hours a day, seven days a week for a rotating roster. No exceptions will be given for staff with children, illnesses or commitments - every Gold Coast nurse will have to work the allocated new hours or resign.

THE Queensland Nurses Union has warned of massive pay cuts for nurses who are re-employed at Maryborough's Yaralla Place nursing home when it moves to a private provider. More than 30 nurses are already believed to have taken redundancies at the home, while another 71 nurses were offered redundancy packages by Wide Bay Hospital and Health Services on Tuesday.

The Queensland Nurses Union (QNU) says it is concerned the privatisation of Yaralla Place Nursing Home in Maryborough will mean a pay cut for staff. Queensland Health has sold the home to PresCare and the company will take over operations in October.

TOOWOOMBA nurse Deb Louden says she left her heart in Africa when she returned home from her first period of service with the international medical charity Mercy Ships in Benin in 2009. "I just knew I had to return," Miss Louden, 26, said from onboard the hospital ship, Africa Mercy.

ILLAWARRA-Shoalhaven Medicare Local has joined in a partnership with Parkinson’s NSW to continue the neurological nurse service in the Shoalhaven and Kiama regions. The local program, which has been running for the past three years, keeps Parkinson’s disease sufferers in their homes longer.

UNIVERSITY of Tasmania midwifery lecturer Lynne Staff saw the best of Prime Minister Kevin Rudd yesterday. Mr Rudd met Ms Staff as he was given a tour of the university's school of nursing at Launceston, which will be at the heart of the proposed $83.5 million Northern health education, training and research facility.