Dear colleagues,

What a busy few weeks we’ve had at Metro North Health! It sometime seems like we are on a never-ending roller coaster and it’s never going to stop and let us get off. Our busy working lives coupled with the current pressures of COVID-19 and all the additional imposts that it poses makes for such unprecedented times.

Please make sure as we head into spring and a bit more sunshine that you take stock and look after you and your loved ones. Remember work is important but, in order to give work your complete focus when you are here, you need to give home and family and your own wellbeing your full attention when you are not. Make September the month of you and do something nice.

This month is a socially busy one for me with an 80th Birthday (my mother), a 1st birthday (our granddaughter), Father’s Day (my husband… but I don’t buy him a present… I tell him he is not my father!), a 25th Birthday for my daughter-in-law and the list goes on. Lots of socialising and fun! So, while there is nothing in that mix for me, there is much fun and frivolity with family and friends, and I love that.

QUT Metro North Academy launch

On Wednesday 1 September we officially launched the QUT Metro North Academy; a collaborative partnership between one of our largest university partners and ourselves. This initiative is an innovative way of bedding down our long-standing existing relationship with QUT and really promoting our research and academic intent.

This initiative is based on similar models in the UK and US, which essentially have extremely close alliances with universities to endorse academic models, encourage and support research, and facilitate education both at the bedside and in academia. Our aim and purpose will be that the Academy will be the foundation on which to build, grow and support nurses and midwives, now and into the future. Now that we have launched, we are working through the criteria to enable membership of the QUT MN Academy, and I hope that we get applications from nurses and midwives across the HHS. We will advise in due course of this process.

Remember we still have strong academic partnerships with many universities, and we will continue those relationships with exactly the same enthusiasm and gusto as we always have. The QUT MN Academy is taking that relationship to the next level, in exactly the same way that STARS and UQ have embraced an academic/research partnership and formed the Stars Education and Research Alliance (SERA). This is an exciting era for health and a great opportunity for nurses and midwives to evolve our relationships and work on the translation of research and education into great clinical outcomes. The beneficiaries of these are the patients in our care and the ability to nurture and develop current and future staff.

I want to thank all those who attended the launch and to those who have contributed so significantly to date. As always, I am so proud of the nursing and midwifery staff at Metro North and this is just one more feather in the cap of each and every one of you.

While 2020 was the Year of the Nurse and Midwife and that was somewhat thwarted by COVID, the passion you demonstrate as you deliver care and meet our challenges is second to none, so well done. So let’s forget about 2020 and make 2020 – 2030 the DECADE of the Nurse and Midwife! I don’t know if I will get that over the line with our other health colleagues, but let us demonstrate as we always do that a little hiccup like COVID is not going to change the focus of our professions.

Thank you for all you do. Remember “life is short, work somewhere awesome.”

Regards,

Alanna