Deploying more ‘super nurses’ in remote areas has been suggested as the best way to cope with the strain that grey nomads put on the local medical services of the places they visit.
A University of Canberra research paper, ‘The Australian grey nomad’, says older travellers are sometimes unable to get the medical treatment or additional medication they need from rural hospitals or Remote Area Nurses. The answer, it suggests is more Nurse Practitioners.
A Nurse Practitioner can conduct health assessments, deliver a range of interventions, including prescribing medicines, ordering diagnostic tests, and referring patients to other health professionals.
“Grey nomads may be caught out by the level of health facilities around Australia if they assume that they will always be able to access a medical practitioner, regardless of where they travel,” said Dr Catherine Hungerford, one of the authors of the report. “If grey nomads are aware of the role of Nurse Practitioners, they may be more likely to visit one if they need health care during their travels.”
She said the Nurse Practitioner model of practice was set up as a case study in a remote area of Australia which had a sizeable tourist population and the Nurse Practitioner was then able to provide care in situations where previously grey nomads would have been caught out.
Despite the findings of the report which was published in the Rural and Remote Health journal, Dr Hungerford acknowledges that making changes to the models of healthcare ‘out there’ will still require time, money and determination.
“The Nurse Practitioner role has been slow to take off because medical practitioners have argued that it is unsafe,” she said. “These arguments are based more on ‘territory defending’ than anything else – Nurse Practitioner have received at least five years of education and have over five years of nursing practice at an advanced level.”
She said the Nurse Practitioner role was best viewed as complementary to, rather than a replacement for, the medical practitioner.
“The problem is increasing problem in Australia as more and more grey nomads ‘hit the road’ without the necessary preparation to support their health needs throughout their journey,” she said. “Grey nomads often have chronic health conditions, and need health care during their travels.”
She says the other key way grey nomads can safeguard against major health dramas is to plan ahead in terms of the medications needed, and to carry a health summary that includes a list of active problems, past history, current medications and allergies.
Lived in Karratha 1998/9. No doctor at the hospital. He/she flew in on medical runs. Cant remember how frequent but you did still get very good service from the nurses at the hospital. Wife was treated there for some time, almost had to be transferred to Perth.
What Catherine Hungerford is saying is very True. Nurse Practitioners would be a great asset for remote areas/communities ,not only for us grey nomads but for the locals too.
There are already some Nurse Practitioners in WA and they do an excellent job. They can write scripts and can consult with a doctor via technology when needing a second opinion. Great idea for travelers and locals but sad that these circumstances are a necessity given all the funding that should be ploughed into hospital funding by States and Federal government from the sale of tobacco and alcohol.
Watch the medical staff knock it on the head.
The AMA is a powerful union and has the ear of the Liberal party
My husband and I will be becoming Gray Nomads within the next couple of months and reading this gives me a warm fuzzy feeling knowing that help would be just around the corner with nurse practitioners, for heart attact situations, scrips, etc,etc. But also as someone else said for the locals as not always is their a doctor near by ,either already been called out or having a break.