Momentum for the group and online survey got underway at last month’s New Zealand Rural General Practice Network’s Rural Health Conference in Wellington.
Nineteen candidates – including nurse practitioners, district nurses, rural nurse specialists, rural hospital nursing leaders and academics from Northland to Southland – have put themselves forward for the proposed working group that aims to boost the profile and support for rural nurses. Rural nurses are being invited to vote for a six member working party and at the same time take part in a confidential survey to gather some demographic data on the rural nursing workforce and the challenges they face from working in rural and remote locations
Rhonda Johnson, who helped kick off the initiative said one of the motivations was the lack of a forum for rural secondary nurses like herself but the group was open to all nurses who identified as being a rural nurse.
She said the challenges of nursing in rural and remote areas were well known – including social and professional isolation – and the working group wanted to raise the profile and provide greater support for rural nurses working in New Zealand.
Johnson, a longstanding charge nurse at Central Otago’s Dunstan Hospital who is currently seconded as a project planner, lead a session with Dunstan director of nursing Debi Lawry at last month’s conference on establishing a rural nursing network. After a brief consultation with representatives of the New Zealand Nurses Organisation a handful of nurses decided to push ahead with setting up a working group.
She said it was decided to kickstart the initiative by forming a Rural Nurses NZ Facebook page, which now had nearly 140 members, and to seek candidates for the working party.
Emma Dillon, one of the other initiators said having such a group would help nurses like herself – who took up her first rural nursing job on the Coromandel peninsula nearly two years ago – get on their feet in a rural setting. “I think there’s a lack of awareness and support for rural nurses.”
Previously rural nurses formed the Rural Nurse National Network that operated from 1995 until it merged in 2004 with then Rural GP Network to form the current Rural General Practice Network (RGPN). A rural nurse specialist, Kirsty Murrell-McMillan, was elected chair of the RGPN in 2008 and the current chair is nurse practitioner Sharon Hansen.
A number of nurses attending the networking session at the Wellington conference expressed concern that the nursing voice had slowly got lost in the RGPN and it was perceived by some as more doctor-focussed. Several RGPN nurse board members attended the conference session and, along with the RGPN chair, are members of the Facebook page
Johnson said RGPN had had some questions about the working group initiative. “They have done a lot of good work for nurses and fought quite hard to have nurses heard within that forum over time. We’ve been allaying concerns that this isn’t to replicate what they are doing or to take over – its in collaboration with RGPN and to include rural secondary nurses as well.”
Rob Olsen, communications director for the RGPN said the network currently had around 900 nurse members – which was higher than its GP membership – and had a number of nurses on its board along with the nurse practitioner chair.
“We’ve got to open up the conversation with the rural hospital nurses and really invite them to a part of our network and a part of the work and progress we are making in the rural health sector for all rural health professionals – and nursing is a huge part of that.”
Olsen said there had been a request for a nurse section on the website and that was to be included in the network’s planned new website along with a secure forum for both nurse and GP members.
Johnson said technological and communication developments also meant the potential was now there for rural nurses to connect via platforms like Facebook. She said the Rural Nurses NZ Facebook page had the potential to be the equivalent of the café at a big city hospital by providing a safe place where rural nurses could either just ‘shoot the breeze’ or brainstorm a solution to a problem with nurses facing similar issues in their own setting.
All nurses who identify as working rurally are invited to take part in the survey and vote for the working party.
Rural Nurses NZ Facebook page
