Im not sure if this is more a celebration of the nursing and midwifery professions or a self promoting, positive spin add for the Nursing and Midwifery Board of Australia. It appeared in yesterdays letters to the editor of the Surf Coast Times but I am assuming it was sent out blunderbuss style to many newspapers.
Dear Editor,
The Nursing and Midwifery Board of Australia (the national board) recognises that May is an important month for Australia’s 340,000 enrolled and registered nurses, nurse practitioners, midwives and eligible midwives.
The International Day of the Midwife on May 5 and International Nurses Day on May 12 are perfect opportunities to reflect on the invaluable contribution of each profession to the health and wellbeing of the Australian community.
Australia’s nursing and midwifery professions take their work extremely seriously, endeavouring to achieve the best possible health outcomes for those in their care. The national board also has the health and safety of the public at the core of its role by ensuring that the Australian public has access to qualified and competent nurses and midwives to provide safe, quality care.
The nursing and midwifery professions’ contribution to community wellbeing is not just evident in a practical sense. Their support of change and innovation to achieve better evidence-based health outcomes is in line with the work of the national board in implementing evidence-based policy and standards to guide professional practice.
On behalf of the national board, I pay tribute to the work and diligence of Australia’s enrolled nurses, registered nurses, nurse practitioners, midwives and eligible midwives and acknowledge their invaluable contribution to achieving better evidence-based healthcare outcomes for the Australian community.
Anne Copeland
Chair, Nursing and Midwifery
Board of Australia
I have posted before about my confusion over exactly what the NMBA is doing with our collective fifty three million, one hundred and forty-nine thousand, six hundred dollars in registration fees.
And I must say, I am still none the wiser.
As to part of the content of this letter: I do not think that we, as individuals should be paying to ensure the general public are protected from unqualified or incompetent nurses. A very important activity granted, but surely that is for the taxpayers to fund1
Or perhaps there could be a separate board for unqualified and incompetent nurses who would pay a higher registration fee. Just a thought.
What do you make of this letter to the editor?
PS: the picture is of the bustling AHPRA foyer in Melbourne sent in by a reader who was voicing her displeasure at the increased fees ( I assume she eventually found someone to voice to).Very nice2.
You are not alone in your fee-related tales of woe, I’m afraid. With the advent of the AHPRA and national registration (which in principle is a bloody good idea), medical registration fees for doctors in the ACT went from $375 to $650 in one go, which is roughly a 73% increase.
A letter to the AHPRA voicing my interest, concern, and puzzlement as to what necessitated this rather dramatic increase was met with a perfunctory bureaucratic response which essentially boiled down to “this is how much money we need to run the new system” in conjunction with “it’s all self-funded from registration fees now, so there’s no subsidisation”.
1. I thought the idea of switching to national registration was intended to streamline and centralise the process… one might be forgiven for thinking this should be _cheaper_, not almost twice as expensive to administer.
2. The state and territory health boards were also all completely funded from our registration fees, with no subsidisation, and seemed to get the job done.
Why is it suddenly so much more expensive?
There was nothing wrong with wearing you badges. At least someone saw that you might actually knew what you were on about. I miss them.
The thing is the NMBA will NEVER be accountable for their spending to the professional body of nurses. Ever.
I was discussing with a collegue, the idea of encouraging all our other collegues to wear their various learning institute and other course badges next week to recognise “our” days.
Sooooo one “tongue in cheek” thought re spending is perhaps they intend to give us all a badge! Hope not!!