by kirstymm » 11 Mar 2011, 00:15
This is a great facility. Thank you to Eldrid Gilbert for telling me about the ICN Rural and Remote Nurses network and forum.
My name is Kirsty Murrell-McMillan and I am chair of the New Zealand Rural General Practice Network. This is a network of rural doctors and nurses who are both advocates for rural general practice and a group who are supportive of all rural practitioners working within NZ. We started in 2000, and have always been a board where both nurses and doctors strive to work to gether equitably towards how they can best serve their community. We have long recognised that a large percentage of the health care work in a rural community can be done by either practitioner and that when there is a supportive team. Nurses in rural NZ enjoy a great deal of autonomy of pracices in collaboration with their GP colleagues. They participate in provision of after hours care, general practice and nurse led services, emergency care first on call roles as well as providing public health , district nursing roles often all bundled into one role.
I will be promoting to our members at the rural conference that we hold annually this website and membership of this rural network. Well done to Eldrid and other rural nurses in the hawkes Bay for their leadership on behalf of NZ .