Ghana: Trainees Nurses To Embark Street Protest Sept. 5 Over NABCO

The Ghana Nurse and Midwife Trainees Association will on September 5 embark on a demonstration across six regional capitals.

This is to register their displeasure at the government’s decision to employ them under the Nation Builders Corps (NABCO) Programme.

In an interview with Citi News, the National Public Relation Officer (PRO) for the Trainee Nurses and Midwives’ Association (GTNMA) Akugri Gaddafi Avokbril said, they intend presenting a petition to the President on that day.

“The six regions will include, the Ashanti region, Brong Ahafo will join the Ashanti region, Western region and Eastern region will be meeting at the Western region. There will also be a demonstration at the Upper East region, the Northern region and the Upper West region and the Greater Accra will be demonstrating to register our displeasure to the government to draw the attention of the good people of this country,” he said.

In May, the Public Relations Officer of the Association, Akugri Gaddafi, stated on Eyewitness News that the remuneration package for nurses in the programme is unfair, suggesting that newly-employed certificate nurses earn about 1, 100 cedis, while diploma and degree nurses earn between 1, 600 cedis and 1, 800 cedis, all much higher than the 700 cedis persons employed under the scheme are set to earn.

He also said nurses employed under the new initiative would not be eligible for perks such as promotions and raises, as they would have to wait for three years at the end of the programme before they can seek permanent employment.

About NABCO

President Akufo-Addo launched the Nation Builder’s Corps on Tuesday as an alternative job creation opportunity for the country’s jobless graduates.

The programme is expected to create 100,000 jobs in seven sectors of the economy including Health, Education, Agriculture, and ICT.

It also forms part of government’s commitment towards addressing the high unemployment in the country.

The programme, which will be managed by the office of the President, will focus on alleviating shortfalls in public service delivery. Beneficiaries are to receive GHc700 as monthly stipends.
Source : https://www.modernghana.com/news/877326/trainees-nurses-to-embark-on-demo-over-nabco.html

Meet Agnes Hansen The 101-Year-old Nurse in Colorado, USA

She retired in 1978 and attributes her long life to exercise, gardening, reading and not smoking or drinking.

At 101-years-old, Agnes Hansen still wishes she could serve her community as a nurse. After all, she spent decades in that capacity here in Colorado.
“That’s all I did and I love it,” she recalled.

Hansen graduated from the CU School of Nursing in 1941, which was the same year the United States entered WWII.

“I got all the boys back from the South Pacific that had been gone for 3 years,” she explained, referring to U.S. soldiers. “I would spend hours with them. They’d call me ‘mama’”.

Aside from helping soldiers who returned home from war, Hansen also delivered several babies.

“Dozens probably,” she said with a smile.

After she retired in 1978, Hansen continued to serve her community through volunteer work.

She attributes her long life to exercise, gardening, reading and not smoking or drinking.
Source : https://kdvr.com/2018/08/21/agnes-the-101-year-old-nurse/

16 nurses who work in hospital’s ICU are pregnant

Baby fever is rampant at this Arizona hospital.

Nurses who work together in the intensive care unit at Banner Desert Medical Center

More than a dozen nurses in the Banner Desert Medical Center’s intensive care unit are pregnant at the same time, the hospital announced.

“They’re wondering what’s in the water,” joked nurse Ashley Atkins at a press conference last week announcing the happy coincidence.

The nurses didn’t realize how many of them were pregnant at the same time until they started a Facebook group chat and more and more ladies kept getting added — with the number of expecting mothers reaching a whopping 16, said nurse Rachel Cosgriff.

The majority of the soon-to-be moms are due between September and February — and they’ll go on maternity leave for 12 weeks.

“We’ve been planning for this for months,” director of nursing Heather Francis said of the looming staff shortage.

The expectant nurses said they all like to go to the cafeteria together to satisfy pregnancy cravings — and have asked workers to make the salad bar more “pregnancy friendly” by adding pickles and olives.

Others are starting to notice as well — one ICU nurse said a patient’s family member asked her: “Are you all pregnant?”

Source; https://nypost.com/2018/08/19/16-nurses-who-work-in-hospitals-icu-are-pregnant/

90% of Nigerian nurses lack basic life support skills – Inspired Nurses Network

Inspire Nurses Network Africa, an NGO, on Sunday in Abuja said 90 per cent of Nigerian Nurses lacked basic life support skills on emergency care.

Josiah Okesola, Leader of the group, disclosed this while fielding questions at the News Agency of Nigeria Forum.

Okesola, who was accompanied by Mrs Regina Askia-Williams, emphasised that every nurse was supposed to be trained on emotional intelligence and critical thinking as well as basic life support skills.

She said these would enable them to respond effectively to emergency anywhere they found themselves.

Emotional intelligence is an important characteristic of nurses that could affect the quality of their work including clinical decision making, critical thinking evidence and knowledge of practice.

Basic life support skills aid health workers on the management of choking, bleeding, shock and heart attack, among other emergency incidences.

These skills also assist in meeting health and safety of patients, students as well as workers.

He lamented that majority of nurses in Nigeria lacked such training and skills to arrest heart attack or prevent sudden death.

“Ideally, every nurse is supposed to be trained on national basic life support and equipped with the skills so that when he or she is hit with any emergency situation anywhere, anytime they will know the simple remedy to arrest heart attack, to prevent sudden death.

“But at the moment 90 per cent of Nigerian nurses do not have basic life support skills.

“It is the responsibilities of health institutions to train them for this but they failed. So, nurses do the little they could with the little training they were able to equip themselves with it.”

On the allegation of nurses’ negligence to patients’ care, the leader of the group blamed this on foundation problems which included unfriendly working environment, lack of basic working tools such as cotton wool, thermometer and injections.

He said in spite of these challenges, nurses were overburdened, citing instances where a nurse had to attend to 20 to 30 patients simultaneously.

According to him, this challenge informed the acclaimed “I don’t care attitude of some nurses”, saying, “ if they have good working environment, well armed with adequate skills, knowledge and basic working materials, their services will be efficient”.

Okesola noted that the same nurses when they travelled abroad performed excellently, describing the alleged “I don’t care’’ attitude as a reflection of how they were being treated in Nigeria.

“I personally had to nurse over 30 patients per shift; imagine a nurse having four to five patients on emergency who are dependent on her, each one of them calling simultaneously for attention.

“For instance, 25 to 30 people calling you at the same time to attend to them, like emergency situations in hospitals, will not augur well with the concerned nurse as he or she will not be able to give his or her best,’’ he said.

Source: Punch Newspaper

Security call for forensic nurses after two struck by patients

The BC Nurses Union (BCNU) is calling for more security at the Forensic Psychiatric Hospital in Coquitlam after two nurses were assaulted while on the job.

In the first incident, a nurse was sucker punched and suffered head injuries; in the second, a nurse was working in the maximum-security unit when the attack happened. She was treated by a physician on the unit and sent to hospital with severe facial injuries.

Both are recovering from the trauma and physical injuries they sustained when violently hit by patients.

The assaults occurred Aug. 5 and Aug. 13, according to the union, just a few weeks after an international expert panel completed a safety review of the hospital.

The union is asking for the release of the report and details about a follow-up action plan.

“We raised these same concerns when the Ministry [of Health] identified this as an unsafe place,” said union president Christine Sorensen.

The facility which treats adults with mental health issues who are in conflict with the law, is also in need of renovations, Sorensen said, as well as other measures to keep nurses safe.

“It’s a high-risk environment,” she said.

A spokesperson from the hospital agreed that the attacks are troubling and Connie Coniglio, chief operating officer, complex mental health and substance use services, said in a statement to The Tri-City News that a review of the incidents will be undertaken to prevent them from happening again.

“It’s always troubling when one of our own is hurt,” she said. “Unfortunately, due to the challenges and trauma our patients have faced, they can be prone to disruptive behaviour.”

Sorensen said the nurses union has worked with the Provincial Health Services Authority to come up with a plan to make the job site safer but little change has occurred.

She suggested security personnel should be in the rooms where nurses are working to prevent or stop attacks.

Meanwhile, Coniglio said efforts are being made to increase staff safety and security, including implementing violence-prevention training, increasing staffing, conducting an external review that includes an action plan as well as make improvements to the facility improvements and changes to procedures.

In an interview, Coniglio said advanced training in relational security will be provided to staff to help them identify problems before they occur, such as recognizing patient mix, knowing triggers and patient dyamics. The method has been introduced in similar environments in the UK to great success, she said, while improvements to procedures for entering and leaving seclusion rooms will also be implemented to increase staff safety.

As well, lighting, alarms and fencing have also been upgraded, as well as improvements to the secure rooms themselves.

“It’s not about the facility solely, it’s about how we provide intervention,” Coniglio said. “This is about providing the staff with the skills and knowledge to help staff work in a highly-complex environment.”

There are no plans to install security personnel in the rooms, however, and monitoring by video is standard in similar facilities.

Coniglio said putting security guards in rooms will onlly inflame the situation, explaining that they could increase patient anxiety and even provoke incidents.

Instead, the hospital will focus on therapeutic and relational security work, she said, while the results of a review by international experts sought by the union will be provided to union leadership likely in the fall.

As many as 200 BCNU members work at the Forensic Psychiatric Hospital, plus allied workers and physicians, while the patient count at the forensic psychiatric hospital is 190 individuals.

Source: https://www.tricitynews.com/news/security-call-for-forensic-nurses-after-two-struck-by-patients-1.23403266

What Are Millennial Nurses Thinking? Here Are a Few Insights By Jennifer Thew RN

Wondering what this new generation is thinking in terms of career pathways and work settings? A new survey sheds some light on the subject.

During the past few years, there has been much lamenting about “those millennials,” and how they just don’t have the same work tendencies as the generations of nurses before them. Often, these assumptions are anecdotal and based off nurse leaders’ personal experiences with the age-based cohort.

The new report, Survey of Millennial Nurses: A Dynamic Influence on the Profession, released by the healthcare staffing company AMN Healthcare, seems to confirm some of these observations. The report compares millennial nurses’ (ages 19-36) responses on the AMN Healthcare 2017 Survey of Registered Nurses to responses from Generation X nurses (ages 37-53) and baby boomer nurses (ages 54-71). The questionnaires were sent out in March and April 2017, and 3,347 RNs completed the survey.

So just how do millennial nurses compare to nurses in other generations? Read on to find out.

On the Move

It’s frequently mentioned that millennial nurses don’t stay in their positions like baby boomer nurses do

The survey findings seem to support that concept.

When asked about how the improving economy might influence their career plans:

  • About 17% of millennial RNs said they would seek a new place of employment as a nurse.
  • 15% of Generation X RNs said they would seek a new place of employment as a nurse.
  • 10% of baby boomer RNs said they would seek a new place of employment as a nurse.

Similarly, data from the RN Work Project, the national study that looked at career changes and work attitudes of new nurses, found:

  • 17.9% of newly licensed RNs left within one year of starting their first jobs
  • 60% left within eight years of starting their first jobs.

Regarding travel nursing, the AMN survey found millennial RNs are more open to traveling than their counterparts in other generations.

  • 10% of millennial RNs said they would work as a travel nurse.
  • 6% of Generation X RNs said they would work as a travel nurse.
  • About 5% of Baby Boomer RNs said they would as a travel nurse.

Advanced Practice Goals

According the AMN survey, millennial RNs are eager to join the ranks of APRNs.

  • 49% of millennial RNs said they want to become APRNs.
  • 35% Generation X RNs said they want to become APRNs.
  • 12% of baby boomer RNs said they want to become APRNs.

Over the past decade, both the number of and need for nurse practitioners have grown.

The American Association of Nurse Practitioners NP Fact Sheet, reports there are more than 248,000 licensed NPs in the United States, and the Health Resources & Services Administration projects the supply of primary care NPs to increase to 110,540 FTEs, up from 57,330 in 2013.

Of the millennial RNs responding to the survey:

  • 28% of millennial RNs said they would pursue an NP degree in the next three years.
  • Another 14% said they would pursue education to become clinical nurse specialists.
  • 7% said they would become certified registered nurse anesthetists.

Future Leaders

Millennial RNs show a desire to pursue nursing leadership roles.

  • 36% of millennial RNs said they would seek a leadership role.
  • 27% of Generation X RNs said they would seek a leadership role.
  • 10% of baby boomer RNs said they would seek a leadership role.

 

Jennifer Thew, RN, is the senior nursing editor at HealthLeaders.

Source: https://www.healthleadersmedia.com/nursing/what-are-millennial-nurses-thinking-here-are-few-insights

New nursing student numbers fall for second year running after end of bursary in England

New figures revealing a drop in nursing student numbers have escalated fears about the future of the profession already in the grip of a staffing crisis.

“It’s time for ministers to take decisive action to address the nursing shortage and keep patients safe”

Donna Kinnair

Data released today shows 21,030 applicants have secured a place on university nursing programmes across the UK so far this year – a 2% reduction from last year and an 8% fall from 2016.

The decline has been driven by a sharp crash in new students from England and European Union countries outside the UK, according to latest figures published by the Universities and Colleges Admissions Service (UCAS) after A-Level results were received.

Conversely, there has been a slight rise in applicants from Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland and non-EU countries being placed on courses.

The statistics reveal that 15,490 people from England have been accepted on a nursing course, which is a 4% drop on 2017 and 11% reduction from two years ago.

Meanwhile, the number of EU students set to embark on nursing programmes in the UK currently stands at 330 – a drop of 23% since 2016, the year of the Brexit vote.

“We need to see sustained and targeted action to encourage more people to enter healthcare professions”

Katerina Kolyva

A further 7,960 students have a holding offer for a nursing course and up to 14,540 could receive a place through clearing.

The figures are revealed against a backdrop of a snowballing recruitment and retention crisis facing nursing and the wider NHS.

The Royal College of Nursing estimates there to be around 40,000 nursing vacancies in England’s health care services alone.

The downward trend in placed nursing students at this stage follows the continued fall in applicants revealed by UCAS earlier this year.

As reported by Nursing Times, a total of 35,260 people from England applied to study nursing at university next year, compared with the 40,060 who had applied by the same point in 2017, according to the UCAS report.

The RCN blamed the latest slump in nursing student numbers on the government’s controversial decision to scrap bursaries for pre-registration nurses from August 2017 in favour of a loans system.

Dame Donna Kinnair, the union’s director of nursing policy and practice, said: “Ministers’ decisions on student funding have left nursing in managed decline. Today’s figures should be the wake-up call the government needs to properly address the staffing crisis that’s putting safe and effective patient care at risk.”

“It is time to stop tinkering around the edges – the government’s ad-hoc approach is clearly not working,” said Dame Donna.

“We urgently need comprehensive workforce plans that safeguard recruitment and retention and responds to patient need in each country,” she said. “This should include a range of incentives to attract more nursing students.

Royal College of Nursing

Source: Kate Stanworth

Donna Kinnair

“Though we will see additional students placed through clearing in the coming weeks, today’s figures mean fewer nurses will enter our understaffed healthcare system in three years’ time, further jeopardising patient care. This situation cannot be allowed to continue,” said Dame Donna.

She added: “The government is nowhere near recruiting the 10,000 extra health care students we were promised by 2020. We need nurses with the education and skills to lead patient care. It’s time for ministers to take decisive action to address the nursing shortage and keep patients safe.”

The RCN also raised concerns about the continued drop in mature students. The UCAS figures show 6,260 people aged 25 and over from England have been accepted on nursing courses – falling from 6,570 in 2017 and 7,450 in 2016.

This change threatens to further destabilise learning disability and mental health nursing, which have been worst hit by staffing woes and have traditionally relied on students with significant life experience, the RCN warned.

“There are currently 52,000 nurses in NHS training with more to come”

DHSC spokesman

On the other hand, the number of 18-year-olds receiving a placement has reached the highest level since 2009.

The statistics also reveal the ongoing gender disparity in the profession, with just one in every 11 nursing students so far this year being male.

The team behind The Student Nurse Project – a community of nursing students and newly qualified nurses – has reacted to the latest figures.

In a statement to Nursing Times, group members said: “As nursing students and newly qualified nurses, when we see that there are at least 40,000 nursing vacancies already in England’s healthcare services alone, we are very concerned about the constant pressures that we will find ourselves under and the dangers to safe and effective care for our patients.”

They added: “Whilst the bursary wasn’t perfect, its removal in England has clearly had an effect on the number of student nurses starting this September.”

“We implore the government looks into funding options, whether bursaries, or other financial relief in order to enable others into the profession and protect the future workforce of the NHS and patient safety,” the team said.

katerina kolyva deans health6 002

Katerina Kolyva

Dr Katerina Kolyva, executive director of the Council of Deans of Health, aired concerns about the drop in overall placed applicants, but drew positives from the figures such as the increase in 18-year-old students.

She added: “The recent campaigns to promote healthcare careers are an important first step but we need to see sustained and targeted action to encourage more people to enter healthcare professions.”

A Department of Health and Social Care spokesman said: “There are currently 52,000 nurses in NHS training with more to come thanks to our 25% increase in training places, and in a historic pay deal backed by the RCN we increased the starting salary of a nurse by £2,000 – helping us to recruit our NHS nurses of the future.”

Source: https://www.nursingtimes.net/news/education/further-decline-in-students-given-place-on-uk-nursing-courses/7025638.article

University of Houston College of Nursing Signs MOU with Indian Nursing Council

A top-ranked college for nursing programme in Texas has signed a MoU with an Indian institution, aimed at developing opportunities for nursing education in India through academic and leadership exchange.

The University of Houston College of Nursing and the Indian Nursing Council, a national regulatory body for nurses and nurse education in India, last week signed the a memorandum of understanding.

Kathryn Tart, professor and founding dean of the college, together with Associate Professor Shainy Varghese, participated in a two-day conference with the Indian Nursing Council this summer.

Fifty nursing programmes from around India were in attendance, selected to create the Nurse Practitioner Critical Care program (NPCC). The selection process was based on recommendations from the Indian Nursing Council and a willingness from the nursing programs themselves to participate.

The Nurse Practitioner Critical Care programmes in India will support hospitals to increase the number of higher educated nurses trained to care for critically ill patients. The nurse practitioners will work closely with physicians to provide treatment and care for patients in intensive care units.

“India has begun the process for advanced practice nursing care and has many obstacles to overcome, not least of which is the current salary of nurses, and what those salaries would look like with Nurse Practitioner or Doctorate of Nursing Practice degrees,” Tart said.

Of those programmes participating in the conference, four expressed interest in creating a Doctorate of Nursing Practice (DNP) programme.         Graduates of the Nurse Practitioner Critical Care programme will be eligible to pursue the doctoral programme. The DNP is a professional graduate degree which focuses on the clinical aspects of a disease process and uses evidenced-based practice to improve patient outcomes.

Nurses in India with a DNP will have completed the highest level of training in nursing practice.

Conference attendees learned about programmes at the college and about nursing leadership, advocacy and philanthropy in a presentation by Tart on “Nurses at the Table.”

Varghese gave a presentation on “Nurse Practitioner and Doctorate of Nursing Practice Programs in the USA.”

The college officials met with nursing leadership from two New Delhi hospitals, Apollo and AIMS, and toured both facilities.

“The hospital tours and meetings with nursing leadership helped us to understand the Indian aspects of patient care and how the NPCC nurses could be utilized in the intensive care units of the hospitals,” Varghese said.

Source: https://www.dailypioneer.com/health-and-fitness/us-varsity-signs-mou-with-indian-nursing-council.html

Pakistan: Nurses accuse hostel director of harassment

The nursing staff of Qazi Medical Complex, Nowshera, on Saturday accused the director of women hostel of harassing them.

Addressing a press conference here, president nurse association Fazal Mulla and others alleged that director women hostel of Qazi Medical complex Dr Hamzullah had got removed the head nurse of the hostel and replaced her with the most junior nurse. They alleged that the director had also appointed an under-matriculation person as the oxygen supervisor.

On the occasion, a nurse named Parveen alleged that the director had received Rs4 million of two years salary without performing his duty in the hospital.

She said they would start agitation if Dr Hamzullah did not change his attitude with nurses. She called for launching a departmental inquiry into matter.

However, director Dr Hamzullah denied all allegations and said he never sacked any nurse from any post. He said removal of the head nurse was a decision taken by a committee.

Published in Dawn, August 19th, 2018

Photo Of Hospital Staff Honoring Organ Donor Goes Viral

On June 19th, Cletus Schneider III was sitting down to dinner with his family. In just a matter of minutes, an average night took a tragic turn. Cletus began choking on his food and before his wife, Carrie, realized what was happening, he had already collapsed. After two days in the hospital, he was declared brain dead and his wife was faced with a heartbreaking decision. Ultimately, his sudden death saved three lives, helped 50 people in need and brought much-needed attention to the importance of organ donation.

Cletus’s story may have gone largely unnoticed if it weren’t for a single photo that went viral on social media. Carrie was walking with her husband and saying final goodbyes as he was being wheeled to the operating room to have his organs harvested. As she turned the final corner, she saw over 150 hospital staff members lining the hallway to show their respects and honor someone who was about to touch the lives of over 50 other patients. Carrie paused to capture the moment and eventually posted the touching moment online. From there, the photo spread and Carrie and her family received messages of support from people all around the world.

Hope overshadows tragedy

If there is a silver lining to this tragic story, it is that Cletus’s death has helped to highlight the importance of organ donation. While the doctors weren’t able to save Cletus, he was able to change the lives of dozens of people simply by being an organ donor. Over the last few decades, the organ transplant shortage has only continued to increase as more people are added to the waiting list. Currently, there are over 114,000 people on the organ transplant waiting list, with another person being added every 10 minutes.

Part of the shortage is due to the fact that organ donation recipients often face complications and their bodies reject the new organs. This means that those who are able to receive a transplant may need a second transplant in the future, which only increases the demand for healthy organs. While immunosuppressant drugs are able to help patients avoid immediate organ rejection, the long-term use of these powerful drugs can come with its own health complications. Researchers are working hard to develop new solutions to ensure successful transplants and reduce demand, but for now, the gap between supply and demand continues to grow.

Another contributing factor to the organ donor shortage is simply a lack of awareness.  A full 95% of Americans support organ donation, but only 54% are registered as donors. Even then, about 2% of all registered donors are actually viable donors at the time of death. As a result, around 20 people die each day while waiting for a transplant as the need for vital organs continues to grow.

Become a donor

Fortunately, states are taking proactive steps to get more people registered as donors. While laws vary from state to state, in most places, you can register at your local DMV. All you have to do is check the organ donation box when you apply for or renew your license. You can also register online in a matter of minutes.

In the wake of Cletus’s death and the attention garnered by the hospital staff’s gesture of support and compassion, more families are discussing organ donation and taking steps to make sure that some good can come out of even the worst tragedies. Ultimately, his legacy will live on in all of the people he was able to help and the many more who were affected by his story. If you would like to learn more about organ donation and whether it is the right choice for you, visit Organdonor.gov

Source; Nurse.org