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A new plan to deal with growing patient numbers at medical clinics has the nurses' union worried.
A South Auckland general practice has trained its receptionist to become a part-time healthcare assistant, and do basic health checks when patients walk in the door.
But the union is concerned about patient safety.
Doctor Ashok Kana of the Seddon Street Medical Centre has come up with the new way of dealing with increased patient demand and staff shortages.
"The world is running out of resources, there are not enough doctors, not enough nurses. And the budget, the government has capped the budget," he said.
Karen Flynn, the senior receptionist at Seddon Street Medical Centre, has been trained to make the clinic's first assessment of a patient, deciding whether they need to see a nurse or a doctor.
"Instead of a patient arriving and waiting 20 minutes before seeing the doctor she would co-ordinate the care of that patient in our practice straight away," said Kana.
But the nurses union, the New Zealand Nurses' Organisation, is concerned.
"When you're starting to substitute a health care assistant for an otherwise regulated nurse - you're talking about registered nurses particularly - then that does become potentially risky to the public," said the organisation's Kate Weston.
Flynn does basic first recordings like height, weight and blood pressure. She can also take urine samples, temperatures and pregnancy tests.
"If she felt the patient was acute and needed urgent attention she would get a hold of the nurse straight away or break a doctor consultation and say 'Look, you need to see this patient straight away,'" said Kana.
Kana oversaw Flynn's training and has created a manual which outlines what she can and cannot do.
But Weston said this was side stepping the Health Practitioners Competence Assurance Act.
Kana said other practices were already running a similar model and he expected more GPs to join him.
Chair of the New Zealand Medical Association, Pete Foley, said nurses and doctors with their high end training needed to concentrate on what they're very good at and the development of the health assistant role was a "no brainer".
But the union said the work of assistants was unregulated, and both sides of the debate agree the Ministry of Health should look at putting national training standards in place.
Health Workforce New Zealand said they were assessing whether a national framework should be put in place.
The agency responsible for health training wouldn't comment on the specific issue, but did say anyone extending their existing role needed to have proper training and support.
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Post new commenttony the bald eagle said on 2010-07-31 @ 21:30 NZDT: Report abusive post
How about encouraging school kids to go into these careers if there are shortages? Nothing seems to have changed in the last 40 years to help kids get into a career, it just seems to be left to good luck rather than good management...