Jean Ross
Four million people are dispersed across 115,000 square kilometres and several islands. And in every small town and remote outpost, babies are born,injuries happen, people get old.
It’s little wonder, then, that the health care professionals who work the length and breadth of New Zealand are held in high and loving regard by the communities they serve. It follows also that Otago Polytechnic, nationally recognised for its strength in nursing and midwifery education, would take a keen interest in the circumstances of rural health workers.
What is more surprising, remarks Jean Ross, who facilitates the rural learning with the Bachelor of Nursing programme at Otago Polytechnic, is the lack of texts that focus on rural nursing in New Zealand. Until 2008, she had relied on research from Australia and the United States to inform students exploring this specialist area of the Polytechnic’s Bachelor of Nursing and Master of Nursing degrees. Happily, this was a situation she was perhaps uniquely positioned to address. Through her Otago Polytechnic role, and her previous post at the University of Otago’s Christchurch School of Medicine, Ross has overseen many of the country’s masters’ theses on rural nursing over the past decade, particularly those undertaken in the South Island. Further, she enjoys strong relationships with her North Island counterparts.
"We knew there was this vast body of quality, peer-reviewed research on rural nursing lingering as theses in institutions’ libraries and on graduates’ bookshelves. We had a great opportunity to create a resource that was fully grounded in New Zealand perspectives and experiences." An advertisement in the New Zealand Nursing Journal Kai Tiaki yielded so many responses from students, Ross was required to go back to the Ministry of Health’s Innovative Rural Funding scheme, which funded the work, and ask to make the book larger than fi rst planned. "It was a thrilling response. It spoke volumes of the untapped knowledge and enthusiasm among our rural nurses."
The result is Rural Nursing: Aspects of Practice. Edited by Ross and with 17 contributors – all current or former nurses – from around New Zealand, it covers issues ranging from theoretical concerns such as how "rural" is defi ned, through to describing specifi c clinical experiences such as the impact of tourism on nursing. The textbook can be downloaded through Ministry of Health website: www.moh.govt. nz/moh.nsf/indexmh/nursing-resourcespublications The picture it paints is of a network of independent, adaptable, resourceful practitioners. They step up when GPs move out, set up their own systems of support, and never quite switch off from a day’s work. "What perhaps sets the rural nursing experience apart from other kinds of nursing is the absolute embeddedness of a nurse within their community. They may have people talking to them about health issues in the supermarket. They are conscious of what it means to be seen at the pub. It can be at once a very privileged, and very demanding position," comments Ross.