Celebrating Pacific ophthalmic nurses

February 2, 2019 David Garland

On a somewhat balmy, 30+ degree Adelaide Sunday, the Australian Ophthalmic Nurse Association (AONA) met for their annual conference, held this year in the wonderful Adelaide Convention Centre. I say balmy, because the last time I was in Adelaide, the temperature was 40+ degrees, for six days straight!

 

The nurses’ conference was held concurrently with RANZCO’s 50^th Annual Scientific Congress, both hosted at the same venue, overlooking the River Torrens. The AONA conference was opened by Heather Machin, AONA president, who welcomed delegates and acknowledged the Kaurna people of the Adelaide Plains, the traditional custodians of the land where this year’s conference was being held.

 

The AONA conference this year, while understandably having an Australian focus, also included a diverse range of speakers from outside Australia. Poignantly, two of the four sessions run on the day were titled, Diverse Practice of Pacific Rim Nurses, and Our Magnificent Pacific Nurses, providing a real multicultural, multi-geographical flavour and message, which made for an excellent, well-rounded meeting.

 

Dr Elethia Dean kicked off the presentations with great energy and humour, talking about the American nursing certification programme for ophthalmic nurses, which is not just for the US but also available to nurses in other countries. Dr Dean has the gift of making one enthused about a topic beyond what you would normally expect to be – a sort of nursing version of Oprah. A hard act to follow!

 

And next to present was yours truly on advanced practice nursing in New Zealand. I talked about the nurse specialist and nurse practitioner roles and also focused on the nurse injector role for anti-VEGF, particularly the credentialing process that ensured nurses were undertaking this role within their scope of practice to satisfy both the district health board and the Nursing Council.

 

My talk was followed nicely by a combined presentation on the introduction of the nurse injector role in Singapore. Dr Ian Yeo’s talk focused on the medical perspective, the opposition that was faced in implementing nurse-led injections and satisfaction about how well the process has gone so far. Nazurah Loh’s then presented the nursing perspective, sharing how she and the other nurse injectors were initially apprehensive about taking on the role. But with support from Dr Yeo and others have successfully transitioned into confident clinicians. Nazurah highlighted the importance of having a champion to provide impetus to set up this new role by helping break down the barriers and challenge preconceived mindsets.

 

Continuing the vein of advanced nursing practice, Artika Avikashni from Fiji gave an excellent talk on the Pacific Island nurse training and extended practice programme that is been run out of the Pacific Eye Institute in Suva, enabling nurses to reach patients in remote areas across the islands of Polynesia, Melanesia and Micronesia.

 

Drew Keys, from the International Association for the Prevention of Blindness (IAFB), gave an interesting talk on the organisation’s work in the Western Pacific. The IAPB Vision Atlas tool (which can be accessed online) brings together the latest data and evidence related to avoidable blindness and sight loss, tells the story behind the numbers, presents solutions and good practice and highlights opportunities and emerging threats in an attempt to prevent continued vision loss globally and regionally. The 11^th General Assembly for IAPB was due to be held in Auckland in 2020 but, alas, due to the hold ups on the Auckland Convention Centre will now be held in Singapore instead.

 

The final presentation of the morning was given by Professor Nitin Verma representing RANZCO who welcomed us to the conference and talked about the increasing collaboration between ophthalmic nurses and doctors in Australia, continuing the theme from earlier presentations.

 

The afternoon session was a combination of excellent talks from nurses working in the Pacific Islands including Fiji, the Solomon Islands and Papua New Guinea. The constant message from these wonderful nurses was that despite working with so little they were achieving amazing results and caring for patients in areas that were remote and difficult to reach. Many stories were of patients and their families travelling for days over rough terrain or open sea just to be seen at an eye clinic.

 

Another combination presentation was given by Dr Tim Henderson and Anna Huigen based in Alice Springs, who work with the local indigenous population in the Northern Territories and Barkly; a region larger than Spain. They discussed Remote Area Nurse Training, providing another inspiring talk about meeting the needs of patients in remote areas.

 

Probably one of the most memorable talks of the day, however, was given by Roseanna-Zoe Knowles who works as both a nurse and ocularist. Roseanna-Zoe’s presentation was inspirational for the amazing work she is doing in giving not only a life-like prosthesis to those who have lost an eye, but the social and psychological empowerment to her patients.

 

All in all, a wonderful conference, excellent and varied speakers in a lovely warm Adelaide. And with so many wineries to be visited, it was both unfortunate and lucky for my Visa that I didn’t have enough time to explore the area more before having to fly back to Auckland… maybe next time.

 

David Garland is an ophthalmology nurse practitioner with the Auckland District Health Board and was a speaker at the 2018 AONA Conference.