Nursing issues, past and present, take spotlight
Such was the theme of Trillium Health Centre's recent forum titled Nursing Care: Past, Present and Future, How Will We Reinvent Nursing for the Next 20 Years?, held in honour of National Nursing Week (May 12 to 18).
Pam Pogue, chief nurse executive, led more than 30 of Trillium's 1,600 nurses in the discussion, which pondered, among other things, the shifting balance between sick and wellness care and bridging the shortage gap in nursing.
"The focus on illness must be rebalanced towards wellness and holistic care. In interviewing patients and families, I've found the patient experience needs some attention; their health and well-being is the most important," she said, noting the hospital's policy of 'conversation work,' whereby nursing staff discover what means most to each individual patient, so engaging them in the provision of their personal health care.
With a shifting demographic - which will see both a surge in potential health care-recipients vis-a-vis an aging baby boomer population and a simultaneous decrease in frontline health care professionals as the bulk of the nursing work force ages into retirement - many nursing organizations took the occasion of Nursing Week to promote the profession to young people just entering the working world. The Canadian Nurses Association predicts a national shortfall of 78,000 RNs by 2011, growing to 113,000 by 2016. The Registered Nurses Association of Ontario (RNAO) launched a public awareness campaign this week, plastering more than 1,000 posters on the provinces trains and buses, with one simple message: whether in public health, primary care, hospitals, home care, rehabilitation or palliative care, nursing offers a world of opportunities.
Just ask Carol Blair-Murdoch, a 20-year nursing veteran who currently works as both a clinical educator at Trillium and as a bedside nurse in the Hospital for Sick Children's Critical Care Unit.
"That's one of the perks of being a nurse - that there's such a variety of roles that you can have in your life and on any given day," she said, noting that her career has also afforded her the opportunity to work and travel all over the world. "I served out four contracts in Saudi Arabia. With nursing you have such an ability to carve out a career that works for you."
