A nurse who started a charity from a granny flat in her parent’s backyard to reduce hospital waste has taken out one of the Australian nursing profession’s most prestigious honours.
Brisbane’s Claire Lane MACN was today named the 2022 winner of the Health Minister’s Award for Nursing Trailblazers, a national award recognising nurses whose leadership has led to innovative solutions addressing key challenges facing our health and aged care systems.
Claire received the award for her work with Save our Supplies, a for-purpose organisation that collects excess clean usable medical supplies from hospitals.
Working with Rotary, they redirect the supplies to areas of need, including developing nations, war-torn areas like Ukraine and Flood impact regions of Australia.
The announcement was made at the Australian College of Nursing (ACN) National Nursing Forum in Darwin by Assistant Minister for Health and Aged Care Ged Kearney.
ACN CEO Adjunct Professor Kylie Ward FACN congratulated Claire on becoming the fourth nurse – and third successive from Queensland – to win the Health Minister’s Award for Nursing Trailblazers.
“Claire is an exceptional woman and nurse who has used her leadership, expertise and passion for social impact – characteristics our profession prides itself on – to make the world and future a better place,” Adjunct Professor Ward said.
“She not only created an innovative solution to address one of the biggest challenges facing our healthcare systems, but has gone above and beyond to use it to improve the health of people across the world.
“She exemplifies the mission of the Health Minister’s Award for Nursing Trailblazers, showcasing to Australians the leading role nurses’ skills and expertise play in shaping the lives of those we care for.
Assistant Minister Ged Kearney noted the honour she felt as a nurse to announce the recipient of the Health Minister’s Award for Nursing Trailblazers. She also reflected on “how proud she was to have been a nurse” and that she wanted “every single nurse to be proud of what you do every day for all Australians”.
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Sonia Marshall – South Western Sydney Local Health District
South Western Sydney Local Health District serves nearly 1 million people in a rapidly growing area of Sydney. Currently 250-300 families a week are moving into the region and with a growing population, the health district requires well executed strategy and delivery of healthcare to the population. Executive Director Sonia Marshall spoke with Australian Health Journal reporter Anne Dao at last week’s Australian Healthcare Week in Sydney, on supporting staff and the community. Sonia highlights the mission of delivering Safe Quality Healthcare at all times. In-time patient feedback is important and the SWSLHD has implemented a system called “My Experience Matters” to give near immediate response from patients on their level of care, whilst they are still on site at the hospital. The aim of the initiative is to quickly identify bad experiences that could be rectified.
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HIGHLIGHTS The power of social determinants of health, panel discussion
Clinicians and consumers know only too well that life circumstances such as poor housing, income and food insecurity can have a negative impact on health outcomes. Conversely, participation in community activities, social connection and access to nature parks and leisure facilities can help maintain health and wellbeing.
More recent phenomena in public health have also focused us on the health and social care connection. Stress factors such as the sudden loss of employment and social interaction, moving to remote work or schooling, and the impacts of sudden, localised COVID-19 ‘lockdowns’ to prevent further outbreaks were triggers of increased psychological distress.
And loneliness is being described as our latest epidemic with chronic loneliness inked to a myriad of health problems and earlier death. A recent report found one in four Australians say they feel persistently lonely, and that loneliness costs $2.7 bn a year in health costs alone.
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