May 2020
-
Amanda Cox: COVID-19 registrar
Amanda Cox is Northern Health’s COVID-19 registrar, but she and her team usually say this is a, “job without a job description,” with the role constantly evolving over the last 10 weeks. “It’s been everything from measuring chairs 1.5 metres apart on the day we opened our Fever Clinic, to moving from calling each patient with their results to creating a texting system. We also developed policies and procedures and provide clinical support and education to clinicians about testing and management of patients,” she said. Amanda is a Physician Trainee, and this is her second year at Northern Health. Before…
-
COVIDSafe App – Download to keep the community safe
The COVIDSafe app helps find close contacts of COVID-19 cases and will speed up the current manual process of finding people who have been in close contact with someone with COVID-19. The Commonwealth has said that widespread use of the app is a precondition of relaxing some of the physical distancing restrictions currently in place. While the COVIDSafe app is completely voluntary, Northern Health staff are encouraged to download the app to help keep our community safe. Over the last week, the entire COVID-19 Incident Management Team have downloaded the COVIDSafe App to their mobile phones. “The app helps the…
-
Celebrating International Day of the Midwife
The International Day of the Midwife was first celebrated on 5 May 1991, and has been observed worldwide since. We spoke to Debra Bourne, Chief Nursing and Midwifery Officer at Northern Health on the significance of this day and her views on midwifery. Debra commenced her nursing career in metro health services within intensive care departments. Later on, she moved to rural health and held a variety of nursing roles, from renal dialysis unit, operating suite, emergency nursing and then midwifery where she worked for 20 years. Debra was endorsed as one of the first rural and remote Nurse Practitioners…
-
Communication without contamination: How Northern Health is protecting our health care workers
Communication is very important in any emergency, however as Dr Loren Sher, Head of Paediatric Emergency points out, with COVID -19, there’s the added challenge of contamination from our communication devices. ‘How to maintain effective and critical communication between staff without the risk of contamination?’ was the problem that Dr Sher put to some friends in business and IT. “They linked me in to the technology team at HESTA. When HESTA heard we were trying to solve a problem related to COVID-19, they not only helped us with the solution, but also donated the equipment we would need to run…
-
Postcard to my younger self: Gavin Fahey
To celebrate the International Year of the Nurse and Midwife, we asked a selection of staff who exemplify the key qualities of a nurse/midwife to write a ‘postcard to their younger self’ and offer insight and advice. Gavin Fahey, Respiratory Clinical Nurse Consultant and Team Leader, had this to say to his younger self: Stay positive, you’re not meant to know everything, so enjoy the learning along the way. Don’t concern yourself with what other people think about you and your opinion does matter. These are the things I would tell my younger self, but also now tell my own…