Nursing Roles in Primary Health Care
The nurses play a vital role within the Primary Health Care system (PHC) given that they are part of the multidisciplinary team. Apparently, these nurses possess registration with advanced education and training that helps in the provision of additional primary health care functions in promoting health, injury and disease prevention, cure, rehabilitation among other services (Walker, 2012). The work also focuses on the roles that other five different health care workers play, including how they relate with the nurses in their day-to-day activities. The other five health care workers include the indigenous health care workers, medical practitioners, pharmacists, physiotherapists and social workers. The entire health care fraternity under PHC system strives to ensure all citizens of a country stay healthy, getting better, and able to cope and live with diseases till the end of life.
The multidisciplinary team comprises of professionals mainly in the field of health care charged with the responsibility of providing comprehensive evaluation and consultation in cases of abuse (Walker, 2012). The team will collectively coordinate activities of various health care agencies to ensure the authorities address interests and rights of health care workers and those of patients. The PHC has the capacity to improve the population's health care alongside contributing to a sustainable health care system. All health care practitioners must work together towards the realization of the goals and objectives of the Primary Health Care system. Further, the health care practitioners in a corporation with policy makers should ensure that health care services are not only accessible but also affordable to the entire population (Walker, 2012).
The Case Study
The case study to be analyzed entails primary health care system in Australia. Over 29,000 nurses in Australia have secured employment in the PHC setting. They primarily perform a variety of roles in the process of providing health care for the population especially...
The nurses are categorized into groups of registered nurses, nurse practitioners, and midwives who work in various platforms including maternal and child health,
community health, school nurses, occupational health nurses, rural and remote area nurses, sexual health and
mental health, and general practice nurses. In essence,
nursing play contributory role in the multidisciplinary approach to
patient care (Miller, 2009). A nurse who provides care to liver transplant patients, for instance, requires exceptional preparation to meet the needs of the patient particularly during crucial phases of the transplant process. The nurse that is responsible for care of the liver transplant patients will ensure health workers meet all the needs of the patient during critical phases of the transplant process.
The nurses supervise and assess the quality of health care accorded to patients. They perfect this supervisory role by visiting the health care facility frequently, and participating directly in facilitating the provision of
quality care through the development of proper infrastructure. In addition, they root for individual care to be accorded to all patients within the unit. Under the spirit of collective responsibility, the nurses would ensure there is no
discrimination from the health care workers or medical doctors in the provision of services to the ailing patient. In essence, they will ensure that the team comes up with disciplinary measures against those people who discriminate patients based on
race, color or
social status (Miller, 2009).
The nurses also keep the superiors informed concerning problems and issues in patient apprehension. This will ensure the
management of such facilities improves their services where necessary through sufficient funding and human resource. The problems of patients include poor infrastructure,
negligence by medical doctors, exorbitant charges for
treatment and diagnoses, and pathetic services from medical practitioners, physiotherapist, social workers, indigenous health workers, and pharmacists. The primary aim of keeping superiors informed about patients' woes is to facilitate fair treatment of patients, apart from increasing quality of services.
The nurses in the multidisciplinary team involve themselves in the selection of process of nursing staff, as well as other health care workers below them in ranking. Incidentally, the nurses present changes as well as innovations to the members of staff in a constructive manner…
