6 May 1999

Enrolled Nurses - the vital link

"I'd like you to imagine the health system as a large web, with threads linking the whole web up. Each thread as important as each other to keep the web existing. For all links to sustain their function they need support from their neighbouring links..." (Linda Bravery, Spinning the Web, 3rd National Enrolled Nurse Conference).

The 3rd National Enrolled Nurses Conference, opened by the QNU Secretary, Gay Hawksworth, was held in Brisbane on 26 and 27 October, 1998 and was attended by some 160 Enrolled Nurses from around Australia. The Conference theme was Enrolled Nurses - The Vital Link and a range of speakers provided an insight into the development of the role and function of the Enrolled Nurse, and the major challenges facing them into the future.

The major theme emerging from the Conference was that the development and promotion of enrolled nursing has been and always will be within the grasp of Enrolled Nurses as a collective group. Recounting her first experiences as an ANF Job Representative in Victoria, where ENs were faced with re-deployment, Margaret Ormerod described how the Director of Nursing and her Deputy were invited to a meeting of ENs to explain what their intentions were:

"The Director of Nursing's first words when she entered the room and I quote 'my word, I never thought there were so many of you...' - there wasn't...forty two is not exactly a threatening number of enrolled nurses, but put into a room, all in the same uniform, angry and wanting to have a say, and forty two can look and sound like a grand final at the MCG!"

QNU Nursing Officer, Roy Drabble's paper, Memoirs of a Mentor, detailed the development of the role and function statement for Enrolled Nurses and the role of the QNU in promoting this as well as medication endorsement for ENs. These are the types of issues that cannot be progressed by individual ENs at the workplace. The importance of such activity cannot be under-estimated:

"The Role and Function statement played a vital part in promoting the value of enrolled nursing to bureaucracy, politicians and the caring community." Roy said.

ANF National Secretary, Judy Uren, spoke of developments overseas, where EN roles have been downgraded and the second level of nurse eliminated. The result has been that health services have suffered, and in some instances moves are already underway to re-introduce the second level nurse.

Jim O'Dempsey from the Queensland Nursing Council supported the need for a national standard in courses leading to enrolment, as currently the requirements differ in each state. He also indicated that if enrolled nurses wished to ensure this occurred, they must organise and lobby collectively. Kay Stringer from TAFE and Janet Glaser from the New South Wales College of Nursing outlined the educational opportunities available to Enrolled Nurses, and encouraged them to take up these opportunities.

Education is more than just acquiring job skills, it is also a part of on-going personal development. And, as Linda Bravery advised delegates:

"It is important for us as ENs to accept our expanding roles with open arms - challenge yourselves to the limit, you may even surprise yourselves.!"

'Lyn', an Enrolled Nurse and one of the survivors of the Port Arthur massacre, spoke about the trauma of her experiences and how the skills acquired for use in the workplace can actually be called upon at any time, without notice and in devastating circumstances. Conference delegates joined together in a standing ovation to acknowledge Lyn's courage and professionalism in the face of such devastation.

Peter Conaghan, an Enrolled Nurse who is now working as the Quality Facilitator at the Toowoomba Health Service, spoke about quality in the health sector and also demonstrated that Enrolled Nurses can and do take on other roles within the health care sector.

During the course of the Conference, the National Enrolled Nurses Association held its AGM and passed a number of resolutions dealing with administrative issues, as well as resolutions designed to encourage Enrolled Nurses to become involved in lobbying around issues such as national consistency in education for ENs.

"The one thing that remains an important factor in the retention of our role within the health system is being given the opportunity to take part in new models of nursing and having input into these models from an Enrolled Nurse perspective. We will always have to justify everything we do and why we do it, with NENA we will do it together." (Margaret Ormerod, President, National Enrolled Nurses Association).