Australian College of Nursing calls for ad campaign funding to target men and women

Aussie nurses are pushing for major changes after feeling let down. Here’s what they want to shake up their profession.

Australia’s peak nursing bodies are calling on the federal government to bankroll an advertising campaign to rebrand the profession, similar to the one used to promote teaching.

Australian College of Nursing (ACN) CEO Kylie Ward said images of nurses are “over sexualised” and people need to know that a modern nurse is “very caring and very smart”.

“Nurses are over sexualised, which leads to them being groped and harassed,” Ms Ward said.

“We are highly intelligent, educated professionals and should be treated as such.”

She said they had made a pre-budget submission calling for the government to fund a campaign, after it was revealed one in five nurses – or 75,000 – have walked away from the nursing since Covid.

She said educating the public and politicians on what it means to be a modern nurse in Australia today would help attract new recruits, and get current nurses to fall in love with their career again.

Australian College of Nursing chief executive Kylie Ward. Picture supplied by Kylie Ward.

Ms Ward said she wanted to see more males in the profession, which means changing the views of parents and grandparents who may have previously discouraged boys from nursing.

“We need to educate little children, and their parents and grandparents to encourage both their girls and their boys to go into nursing,” Ms Ward said.

“We want all people to think nursing is a great career.”

She said many people still think the role of a nurse is to deal with bedpans, when in reality they do highly skilled work and are being asked more and more to do the same tasks as doctors, for which they are not properly remunerated.

The ACN is backing calls by unions for nurses to get a 35 per cent pay rise.

A nurse gives a patient a vaccination.

Currently a registered nurse on the average salary of $83,722 is paid less than librarians, warehouse managers and experienced retail workers, despite holding university qualifications.

Ms Ward said a campaign, along with better pay and conditions and systemic changes, was crucial to tackling the workforce crisis and warned if the exodus continues “Australians won’t get the care they deserve” in hospitals, aged care homes and GP surgeries.

She said there are 450,000 nurses and midwives in Australia, and many career pathways to choose from.

“The Government has already shown with its teachers’ campaign that promoting a positive image can attract new teachers and keep teachers in the profession they love,” Ms Ward said.

“They can do the same for nurses and nursing, Australia’s most trusted profession.”

Health Minister Mark Butler said the government “wants to send a clear message to nurses who are considering that extra couple of years of education that there’s going to be a meaningful career for them”.

He said the development of the first National Nursing Workforce Strategy is now underway and advertising campaigns or other strategies for retention and recruitment of nurses will be considered as part of this process.

WHAT NURSES WANT

• An urgent, 35 per cent pay rise for Australia’s 450,000 frontline nurses, midwives, and assistants in nursing (AIN), including better overtime provisions;

• A change to the current retrograde law – dubbed “professional slavery” – where Medicare pays nurses half of what a doctor gets for the same tasks;

• Former nurses to be paid to update their qualifications – and not made start them from scratch;

• Nursing students to be paid for their 800 hours of practical training.

MEET A MODERN NURSE

Meet a modern nurse

Sonia Martin is not your stereotypical nurse.

Instead of a starched dress, she wears Doc Martens, pants and a T-shirt.

And, instead of monitoring patients on a ward, she is literally on the streets, treating people addicted to drugs, and those experiencing homelessness and mental health problems.

The 50-year-old represents thousands of nurses who look different to how we imagine them.

Ms Martin is a Churchill Fellow, studying a masters, while also running OneBridge and a team of eight nurses operating mobile clinics around Queensland.

Sonia Martin, holds a degree in health science and has been a Registered Nurse working with vulnerable populations for 30 years. Picture credit – PIF Productions

A day in the life of a ‘street nurse’:

5am: I start the day with a bit of meditating to prepare myself for whatever lies ahead.

8am: Zoom meeting on preparation for a policy summit.

9am: Meet the team for a briefing on what we might expect and clinic set up.

9.45am: Zoom meeting with a nurse practitioner about prescriptions we might need that day or help with chronic disease planning.

10am-12.30pm: We see 11 people in the morning clinic. The first patient is a 48-year-old female using sanitary pads and methylated spirits on a leg wound. We provide free wound care and supplies and educate her on how metho can damage tissue.

Next up is a 23-year-old former homeless man with anxiety, depression and drug addiction, comes in worried about a spot on his arm, but leaves without having it seen. It takes two more attempts to get him in the clinic. We suspect it is cancer, and it is later confirmed as advanced skin cancer. We organise specialist care and transport for his treatment.

A 58-year-old woman, who has lost a friend to suicide, comes in struggling with grief. She has mental health issues, compounding traumas and limited social connections.

12.30pm: Quick lunch and half-hour meeting with my mentor about strategy and governance. As the team opens the afternoon clinic, I go through emails relating to funding, which comes from grants and charities, as well as planning future clinics.

1pm: During the second clinic there are four more patients including a 32-year-old woman with an ICE addiction. Previously, when she was homeless we helped deliver her baby in a shipping container where she was living. That child was later taken away. Today she comes in and we give her free needles so she doesn’t get an infection and make sure she has food in the fridge.

4pm: Write up notes, and log all the data.

5pm to 6pm: Checking emails and doing research around best evidence-based models for setting up programs within our service.

Originally published as Australian College of Nursing calls for ad campaign funding to target men and women