Letters
Send your views by email to [email protected], the letters editor @RogerEvansE1, post on the Nursing Standard Facebook page or visit www.nursing-standard.co.uk
Please keep letters to a maximum of 200 words, and include your full name and a daytime telephone number. Letters may be edited
Screening arrangements for nurses, doctors and aid workers returning to the UK from west Africa after caring for people with Ebola virus disease will need to be reviewed in the light of Scottish nurse Pauline Cafferkey diagnosed with the disease after arriving back from Sierra Leone. It is sad that it has taken infected healthcare workers such as nurse William Pooley (News September 24, Letters September 24 and October 1) and this Scottish nurse to raise public awareness of Ebola in the UK. The suffering of countless thousands of people in west Africa passes largely unnoticed. According to the World Health Organization, this latest outbreak has infected more than 19,500 people and killed more than 7,500, including 366 of the healthcare workers who have fought to control the epidemic. More than 660 healthcare workers have been infected with Ebola. TIME magazine has named ‘Ebola Fighters’ the 2014 Person of the Year. Its commendation states: ‘The rest of the world can sleep at night because a group of men and women are willing to stand and fight.’ As Margarite Nathe, senior editor at IntraHealth International, has blogged (tinyurl.com/nhfvz9l): ‘If Ebola has done one thing for the good of global health, it’s that it has shone a spotlight on front line health workers and their vital role in disease response and prevention.’ Bridget Ryan, by email
PLEASE CONTINUE TO SUPPORT OUR WORK IN AFRICA TO COMBAT HIV/AIDS The Stephen Lewis Foundation (www. stephenlewisfoundation.org) works with community-level organisations to turn the tide of HIV/AIDS in Africa by providing care and support to women, orphaned children, grandmothers
GETTY IMAGES
Ebola shines a spotlight on the vital role of front line healthcare workers
and people living with HIV/AIDS. Since 2003, we have funded more than 1,100 initiatives, partnering with 300 organisations in the 15 African countries hardest hit by the pandemic. At a time when volunteers and people giving donations at local and international levels are understandably turning their attention to other crises such as the Ebola outbreak, your support of our African partners is more important than ever. Please give a donation and help to make a difference at the front line of the 30 years of devastation wrought by the AIDS pandemic. Ilana Landsberg-Lewis, executive director and co-founder, Stephen Lewis Foundation, Toronto
EUROPEAN NURSES LOSE OUT IN TERMS OF REGISTRATION AND SKILLS I feel for the two European nurses who have written about their problems in gaining Nursing and Midwifery Council (NMC) registration (Letters October 29 and December 10).
I trained in Blackpool and, a year after I qualified, went to work in Monaco and France. I returned to the UK 16 years later, with professional experience of cardiothoracic surgery, orthopaedic rehab, dementia and palliative care district nursing. My technical nursing skills are equivalent to those of most nurse practitioners here in England. But I was offered only hospital jobs at the bottom end of band 5. My European experience counted for nothing, as I did not have British training certificates. In the end, I took a job in a nursing home, where at least I use my diagnostic skills and some of my palliative care skills. I am British, I speak English and I have still been treated badly. So what can European nurses expect? I am glad I continued to pay my NMC registration, so I did not have to go through what they are going through to re-register. I will become deskilled. But I’m blowed if I am going to slog my
34 january 7 :: vol 29RCNi.com no 19 :: 2015 STANDARD Downloaded from by ${individualUser.displayName} on Nov 15, 2015. For personal use only. NoNURSING other uses without permission. Copyright © 2015 RCNi Ltd. All rights reserved.
Send your views by email to [email protected], the letters editor @RogerEvansE1, post on the Nursing Standard Facebook page or visit www.nursing-standard.co.uk
Please keep letters to a maximum of 200 words, and include your full name and a daytime telephone number. Letters may be edited
Screening arrangements for nurses, doctors and aid workers returning to the UK from west Africa after caring for people with Ebola virus disease will need to be reviewed in the light of Scottish nurse Pauline Cafferkey diagnosed with the disease after arriving back from Sierra Leone. It is sad that it has taken infected healthcare workers such as nurse William Pooley (News September 24, Letters September 24 and October 1) and this Scottish nurse to raise public awareness of Ebola in the UK. The suffering of countless thousands of people in west Africa passes largely unnoticed. According to the World Health Organization, this latest outbreak has infected more than 19,500 people and killed more than 7,500, including 366 of the healthcare workers who have fought to control the epidemic. More than 660 healthcare workers have been infected with Ebola. TIME magazine has named ‘Ebola Fighters’ the 2014 Person of the Year. Its commendation states: ‘The rest of the world can sleep at night because a group of men and women are willing to stand and fight.’ As Margarite Nathe, senior editor at IntraHealth International, has blogged (tinyurl.com/nhfvz9l): ‘If Ebola has done one thing for the good of global health, it’s that it has shone a spotlight on front line health workers and their vital role in disease response and prevention.’ Bridget Ryan, by email
PLEASE CONTINUE TO SUPPORT OUR WORK IN AFRICA TO COMBAT HIV/AIDS The Stephen Lewis Foundation (www. stephenlewisfoundation.org) works with community-level organisations to turn the tide of HIV/AIDS in Africa by providing care and support to women, orphaned children, grandmothers
GETTY IMAGES
Ebola shines a spotlight on the vital role of front line healthcare workers
and people living with HIV/AIDS. Since 2003, we have funded more than 1,100 initiatives, partnering with 300 organisations in the 15 African countries hardest hit by the pandemic. At a time when volunteers and people giving donations at local and international levels are understandably turning their attention to other crises such as the Ebola outbreak, your support of our African partners is more important than ever. Please give a donation and help to make a difference at the front line of the 30 years of devastation wrought by the AIDS pandemic. Ilana Landsberg-Lewis, executive director and co-founder, Stephen Lewis Foundation, Toronto
EUROPEAN NURSES LOSE OUT IN TERMS OF REGISTRATION AND SKILLS I feel for the two European nurses who have written about their problems in gaining Nursing and Midwifery Council (NMC) registration (Letters October 29 and December 10).
I trained in Blackpool and, a year after I qualified, went to work in Monaco and France. I returned to the UK 16 years later, with professional experience of cardiothoracic surgery, orthopaedic rehab, dementia and palliative care district nursing. My technical nursing skills are equivalent to those of most nurse practitioners here in England. But I was offered only hospital jobs at the bottom end of band 5. My European experience counted for nothing, as I did not have British training certificates. In the end, I took a job in a nursing home, where at least I use my diagnostic skills and some of my palliative care skills. I am British, I speak English and I have still been treated badly. So what can European nurses expect? I am glad I continued to pay my NMC registration, so I did not have to go through what they are going through to re-register. I will become deskilled. But I’m blowed if I am going to slog my
34 january 7 :: vol 29RCNi.com no 19 :: 2015 STANDARD Downloaded from by ${individualUser.displayName} on Nov 15, 2015. For personal use only. NoNURSING other uses without permission. Copyright © 2015 RCNi Ltd. All rights reserved.
