CONTENTS
18
REGULARS
02 DIRECTORY 03 EDITORIAL 04 NEWS 14 WORKING LIFE COMMUNITY OUTREACH SERVICE TAKES FLIGHT
Heading out into the community to provide healthcare for older people in their homes keeps Clinical Nurse Consultant (CNC) Diane Gellatly on her toes.
15 WORLD 17 INDUSTRIAL TESTED TO THE LIMITS
FEATURE
18 DEATH AND DIGNITY
24 ISSUES MORAL DISTRESS
WHY VOLUNTARY EUTHANASIA IS A QUESTION OF CHOICE
The prospect of voluntary euthanasia has created strong debate for decades and provoked passionate opinions from both sides of the fence. While not legal in Australia, a recent revived push for national voluntary euthanasia legislation has once again opened up the conversation and nurses have been encouraged to join the debate. Robert Fedele investigates the latest thinking and why more people are supporting voluntary euthanasia and the right to die with dignity.
For nurses and midwives, every new round of collective bargaining for the next enterprise agreement involves another series of tough negotiations and, more often than not, members take some form of industrial action in support of their claims to achieve a fair and reasonable outcome.
Australia has an ageing nursing workforce with many nurses due to retire (Health Workforce Australia, 2014). Coupled with increasing service demands, the need for workers will outstrip the supply (CEPAR - ARC Centre of Excellence in Population Ageing Research, 2014).
25 WORKING LIFE NURSE’S ROLE IN A FOREIGN LAND
04
For many years a team of specialist Gynaecologists and Anaesthetists from The Women’s Hospital in Melbourne have travelled to the beautiful, nomadic land of Mongolia. They have helped train Mongolian doctors in advanced practices related to laparoscopic-gynaecological surgery and anaesthesia, facilitating a number of ground-breaking ‘firsts’ in hospitals across several regions of the country.
26 RESEARCH 27 ETHICS THE ETHICS OF ‘NUDGING’
Over the past several years increasing attention has been given to the social engineering process of ‘nudging’ (also called ‘choice architecture’) and its impact as a mechanism designed to deliberately manipulate and incentivise people to think and act in a presumably beneficial direction.
28 CLINICAL UPDATE A BALANCING ACT: MAINTAINING ACCURATE FLUID
25
BALANCE CHARTING
Fluid balance charting is not a new practice based issue in nursing (Chung et al. 2002; Jeyapala et al. 2015). Evidence reveals that fluid balance charts have been poorly and inaccurately maintained since 1985 (Chung et al, 2002; Scales & Pilsworth, 2008).
32 BOOKS 35 REFLECTIONS 36 FOCUS
DRUG & ALCOHOL NURSING
47 CALENDAR 48 ANNIE
anmf.org.au
December 2016 / January 2017 Volume 24, No. 6 B