Writer
Mary Chiarella
Mary’s career spans 40 years both in the United Kingdom and Australia. Mary is Professor Emerita, Susan Wakil School of Nursing at the University of Sydney. In 2003/04 she was the Chief Nursing Officer, NSW Health Department and prior to that was the Foundation Professor of Nursing in Corrections Health, with the University of Technology, Sydney. Mary is a Board member of Northern Sydney LHD and chairs their Health Care Quality Committee. She also serves on the Health Ethics Advisory Panel to the NSW Minister for Health and the Clinical Governance Advisory Committee to Healthdirect Australia. Mary was awarded an AM for significant contributions to nursing and midwifery education and healthcare standards in June 2019.
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“Consistency” in MBS policy – a further unlevelling of the playing field
Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose. The Medical Benefits Schedule (MBS) Review Advisory Committee (MRAC) has been tasked with supporting “a continuous review framework that ensures the MBS is contemporary, sustainable, evidence- based, and supports universal access to high value care for all Australians. Good about time. Continue reading »
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Curiouser and curiouser – Western Australian Wonderland
It is often said that truth is stranger than fiction and indeed, that is the way I am feeling about the news that the Australian Medical Association (WA Branch), which has a registered training organisation (RTO) that offers a number of short courses and certificate and diploma programs, has recently advertised a Diploma in Nursing. Continue reading »
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Funding the “care” in Primary Health Care
This has been a very good week for the recipients of primary health care (PHC) in Australia. However, a week where PHC gets a significant funding boost is also a good week for the recipients of secondary, tertiary and quaternary health care in Australia, as it means that the right people get the right care Continue reading »
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Strength, will and knowledge: critical components for aged care nursing
Staffing and skill mix is at a crisis point in private aged care, and it must be fixed. We must show solidarity for the needs of our ageing population, because how we treat our elderly says everything about our values as a nation. Continue reading »
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Asking the question: making the first move in Voluntary Assisted Dying
On the 28th November 2023 the Voluntary Assisted Dying Act 2022 (NSW) (the NSW VAD Act) will come into force. Continue reading »
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The myth of meritocracy: Resisting the Strengthening Medicare Taskforce Report
The vehemence with which the medical profession opposes any moves on behalf of nurses and other health professionals to move legitimately into Primary Health Care in their own right is telling. A system in which some professional groups spend an inordinate amount of time propping up the work of another is not to be abandoned Continue reading »
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The Strengthening Medicare Taskforce: Making everyone equal at the front door of the health system
Following the outcome of this year’s Federal Election, Health Minister Mark Butler convened the Strengthening Medicare Taskforce (SMT). Continue reading »
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The Strengthening Medicare Taskforce: No panacea, but great promise in technology driven care
As the Strengthening Medicare Taskforce considers how to ensure access to care is modern, patient-centred and easy, it should not under-estimate the possibilities that technology-driven care has to offer. Continue reading »
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The Strengthening Medicare Taskforce: Commonwealth must resist lobbyists and embed team-based care
The Strengthening Medicare Taskforce must set aside the tired, unhelpful trope that care is about choosing between a GP, or a pharmacist, or a nurse. Health care professionals are complementary to each other and provide better care working as a team. Continue reading »
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The strengthening medicare taskforce: All healthcare workers are on the front line. Let’s get them on the front foot
Following the outcome of this year’s Federal Election, Health Minister Mark Butler convened the Strengthening Medicare Taskforce (SMT). Continue reading »
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What the strengthening Medicare Taskforce: Must do to modernise the primary health care workforce
The first of the five focus areas identified by the Strengthening Medicare Taskforce is to have a reliable training and development pipeline, to build a strong and vibrant primary health care workforce. This is a logical and critical first step, but it is a well-known maxim that form must follow function. Continue reading »
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Time to unleash the full potential of nurses
If we want to improve the health of Australia, we cannot continue to under-use the largest workforce in primary health care. Continue reading »
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If I were the Federal Minister for Health
I would introduce a new way of paying health providers, address the Commonwealth/State blame game and reform the health workforce. Continue reading »
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Investing in community health is the solution to our aged care crisis
The problems in residential aged care are a product of a much broader issue, namely the failure to fund publicly subsidised comprehensive multidisciplinary community care. Continue reading »
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Dear politicians in Canberra and Sydney: caring for us means you need to tell us the truth
We don’t want spin and false promises. Even if the “system” is in good shape, many of the people in that system are not feeling the same. Continue reading »
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Aged care advisory council needs strong nursing voices
Gobsmackingly, the new National Aged Care Advisory Council has been formed without any nursing groups represented. Continue reading »
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How nurse practitioners have been shut out of the vaccine rollout
Privately practising nurse practitioners offer the best solution for vaccinated marginalised populations, but they have been excluded from access to Commonwealth emergency pandemic vaccines. Continue reading »
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Nobody’s handmaiden: how nurses are taking on the top jobs despite opposition.
For so many years, nurses have been viewed as doctors handmaidens, as subordinate professionals. Indeed, the way in which the medically-dominated Medical Benefits Schedule Review Taskforce (MBSRT) treated the 14 evidence-based, patient-focussed, recommendations of its own Nurse Practitioner Reference Group (NPRG) – namely, by rejecting all of them – suggests that for some medical practitioners, Continue reading »
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Vaccine rollout hindered by lack of recognition for nurse practitioners
A general practitioner will be required to supervise nurse practitioners as they administer the COVID-19 vaccine, a decision that was made without concerns of health and safety. This means under-resourced and at-risk communities will be slower to gain access to the vaccine, Continue reading »
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Serving the underserved: nurse practitioners’ invaluable roles during Covid
A Nurse Practitioner (NP) is a Registered Nurse with the experience and expertise to diagnose and treat people of all ages with a variety of acute or chronic health conditions. NPs have completed additional university study at Master’s degree level and are the most senior clinical nurses in our health care system. Continue reading »
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A perverse, offensive and oppressive rejection of nurses
The Medicare Benefits Schedule Review Taskforce further curtails Nurse Practitioner practice – a case of unenlightened self-interest? Continue reading »
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The Brereton Report: what the military can learn from the health system
The Brereton Report makes for uncomfortable reading. Its findings and recommendations principally focus on individuals and their conduct, including unlawful acts, wilful misreporting, falsifying records, failing to exercise proper control over subordinates, giving false evidence and suborning colleagues to give false evidence. Continue reading »
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The lack of integration in Australia’s health workforce. There are unconnected silos everywhere.
We urgently needed healthcare reforms :better workforce planning: more equitable workforce distribution,more efficient workforce utilisation,improved workforce productivity and financing reforms to sustain these changes. We call for the restoration of an independent health workforce agency to drive this essential work. Continue reading »
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Home based and community health care
Home based care and community health teams require a diversity of funding models. Post COVID ,it is most unlikely that community health care will return to its pre-COVID state. Continue reading »
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To mask or not to mask? Is that the question?
The debate about wearing masks during the COVID-19 pandemic has fluctuated, but there now seems to be consensus that it is safer for the public to wear masks to avoid or at least reduce community transmission. Continue reading »
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Nurses, COVID-19 and the risks they run for us.
Nurses and other health care workers (HCWs) around the world are serving us well and at great risk to themselves. Many are exhausted but are carrying on. Still others are re-entering the workforce to assist in enabling surge capacity, so there is no shortage of goodwill and altruism. Continue reading »
