Nursing Meet Ends With 7 Resolutions
By P. Marilyn & Azrol Azmi

Bandar Seri Begawan - The three-day 7th Biennial International Nursing Conference ended with seven resolutions. Nurses will have a more specialised education.

Higher education and degree education for nursing and midwifery will be instituted along with allied health professionals. Nurses and midwives should be seen as contributing to scientific knowledge to improve evidence base. All students will have curriculum support to become information technology literate.

Traditional and new values will be recognised for the highest quality of nursing and midwifery. International collaboration for innovation will be developed. Opportunity to work collaboratively with all health care professionals will be developed.

An eighth international nursing conference in 2008 with the theme "Collaboration in care through partnership" was proposed. Its sub-themes would touch on hi-tech, hi touch, recognise the universal human needs for caring, emerging health issues, family, culture and spirituality and bioethics and caring.

The chairperson of the Organising Committee for the Nursing Conference, Dyg Hajah Thaibah binte Pehin Dato Paduka Haji Abdul Rahim said this conference has shown that there is a wide range of avenues open to nurses that lead to innovation. The conference carried the theme "Innovation in Nursing and Midwifery: Practice, Education, Management and Research."

The speakers and participants identified innovative strategies, which can enhance the development of the nursing and midwifery professions for the advancement of health care.

"The demands placed upon nurses are indeed extreme, when considering that the system does not always support nurses sufficiently to fulfil these demands. Without central endorsement of authority, nurses cannot be truly accountable or even fully responsible for their actions, until the infrastructure for support for an Evidence Based Practice is in place," said Dyg Hajah Thaibah.

She said nurses must be supported in-front-line work, particularly in specialised roles, and when working in a team alongside other health professionals where collective responsibility is required.

To make teamwork effective in practice, nurses must first of all be able to demonstrate the knowledge, experience and accountability, to accept full responsibility for their actions and decisions, in a team of health professionals. "Continuing development in nursing, and the increased sophistication of the nursing role, places nurses in an ideal

,position to plan innovation and creativity and in order to make such collective responsibility work in practice, nurses must have full equality so that they can take up their partnership with the same authority as other members of the health professional team," said Dyg Hajah Thaibah.

Opportunity should be explored to advance nursing, and improve the status and position of nursing in society as without recognition and status, nurses have no voice, and it is crucial that they are heard, if they are to influence health care decisions in this Millennium, she said. Nurses have at their disposal the means for making innovation and creativity possible through ongoing research and education, she said. Guest of honour was the Minister of Health, Pehin Dato Suyoi bin Haji Osman. He said the conference highlights the importance of partnership between the university-based or college-based schools of nursing and health service partners.

"Education and health are now the two pillars upon which the profession of nursing rests. We must continue to build bridges to strengthen this partnership which I have every confidence will prove a long and fruitful one," said the minister.

Professor Susan McDonald from the Clinical School of Midwifery and Neonatal Nursing Studies, Mercy Hospital for Women, La Trobe University, Australia spoke on "The Balance between Midwifery Education Requirements and Workforce Need Resolution".

Conference papers have outlined human simulations used in the education of enrolled and diploma students and have tied together innovations in education where clinical placements are limited and where nurses of different levels are required to meet certain competencies for safe practice.

The papers were delivered by people who shared their experiences from China, Brunei, Australia, the UK, the Philippines, Malaysia, Singapore and Canada. Also present were Deputy Minister of Health Pehin Dato Paduka Haji Hazair bin Haji Abdullah and Deputy Minister of Education cum Chairman of the Board of Management of Pengiran Anak Puteri Rashidah Sa' adatul Bolkiah College of Nursing, Pg Dato Dr Hj Mohammad bin Pg Haji Abd Rahman. -- Courtesy of Borneo Bulletin

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