An increasing emphasis on primary health care in the community has led to a growth in community nursing job opportunities. Community nursing jobs are offered to registered nurses, enrolled nurses, assistants in nursing (AINs), and personal carers. There is some confusion about job titles for community nurses. A survey conducted in Victoria in 1985 among 689 nurses offered 281 separate job titles. Most nurses, however, are satisfied with a title such as ‘Community Nurse [specialist designation]’. For example, ‘Community Nurse Case Management’, ‘Community Nurse Aged Care’.
Community nurses work outside hospitals and medical centres and are found in community health centres, indigenous communities, and rural communities. They also visit and support people in their homes to assist with personal care, domestic issues, case management, companionship, respite care, insurance assessment, specialised nursing care, aged care, palliative care, dementia care, Alzheimer’s Disease, Parkinson’s Disease, wound management, diabetes management, rehabilitation and injury management, and care for the disabled. Nursing services are often tailored by a patient’s general practitioner.
Many employment agencies specialise in the recruitment and placement of nurses in the community health sector, in particular, home nursing. In NSW, home nursing commenced in 1900 with the formation of the District Nursing Association in Sydney at the instigation of the Church of England, which was responsible for the wellbeing of the poor and sick as part of its Christian duty. By 1935, as government funds became available, the Association was incorporated as a second schedule hospital and governed by a board of directors. When the community health program was introduced in 1974, district nurses began to be seconded to multi-disciplinary teams in community health centres. After 1956, the District Nursing Association was decentralised and renamed the Sydney Home Nursing Service, with the first branch located at Hornsby Hospital.
Another area of need is healthcare workers in indigenous communities. The limited access to health services of indigenous communities has meant that in 2006, only 20 per cent of Aboriginal people could see a doctor on a daily basis, according to the Australian Bureau of Statistics. One of the most important issues surrounding the provision of healthcare in these communities is cultural competence and safety. Increasingly, remote healthcare workers are educated in traditional knowledge and medicines of indigenous people. They understand that indigenous people have been looking after themselves for thousands of years, even if health statistics continue to paint a bleak picture.
Enrolled nurse and Aboriginal Liaison Officer, Susan Walker, identifies herself as a Yamatji/Noongar woman brought up in Port Hedland, Western Australia. Susan was encouraged to study nursing by her mother, who was also a nurse. For her, knowledge of the local people and area, and the ability to communicate and liaise with government and non-government agencies and health services are vital to her job as Aboriginal Liaison Officer.
On the rise are community nursing jobs in the mining sector. Hundreds of jobs are advertised weekly for nurses around Australia to work in areas such as drug and alcohol, home care, occupational health, and relief nursing.
