First Hand Community Nursing

This book is to recognize community nurses who provide nursing care in a home setting. Your professional challenges in the community do not go unrecognized.

This book looks at community nursing history in Great Britain during the twentieth century to examine the significant changes affecting the nurse’s work on the district including compulsory registration for general nursing, changes in organisation, training, conditions of service and workload.

The decade ahead will test the nation's nearly 4 million nurses in new and complex ways. Nurses live and work at the intersection of health, education, and communities. Nurses work in a wide array of settings and practice at a range of professional levels. They are often the first and most frequent line of contact with people of all backgrounds and experiences seeking care and they represent the largest of the health care professions. A nation cannot fully thrive until everyone - no matter who they are, where they live, or how much money they make - can live their healthiest possible life, and helping people live their healthiest life is and has always been the essential role of nurses. Nurses have a critical role to play in achieving the goal of health equity, but they need robust education, supportive work environments, and autonomy. Accordingly, at the request of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, on behalf of the National Academy of Medicine, an ad hoc committee under the auspices of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine conducted a study aimed at envisioning and charting a path forward for the nursing profession to help reduce inequities in people's ability to achieve their full health potential. The ultimate goal is the achievement of health equity in the United States built on strengthened nursing capacity and expertise. By leveraging these attributes, nursing will help to create and contribute comprehensively to equitable public health and health care systems that are designed to work for everyone. The Future of Nursing 2020-2030: Charting a Path to Achieve Health Equity explores how nurses can work to reduce health disparities and promote equity, while keeping costs at bay, utilizing technology, and maintaining patient and family-focused care into 2030. This work builds on the foundation set out by The Future of Nursing: Leading Change, Advancing Health (2011) report.

This edition, written as South Africa moves from expensive curative health care to a more people-focused primary health-care system, highlights transitional structures and bridges the gap between past and present. Part One focuses on the Government of National Unity and population development programmes, emphasising the role of community nurses in the primary health-care system. Subsequent sections cover factors playing an important role in community nursing, including housing, urbanisation and malnutrition. In accordance with the National Health-care Plan for South Africa, prominence is given to issues such as health education and maternal and child health care. The section on communicable diseases has been updated and takes into account changes in legislation and the latest statistical information. Primary health-care problems at community level are covered in depth. Students and practitioners will benefit from the wealth of information in this new edition.

In 1924, the United States began a bold program in public health. The Indian Service of the United States hired its first nurses to work among Indians living on reservations. This corps of white women were dedicated to improving Indian health. In 1928, the first field nurses arrived in the Mission Indian Agency of Southern California. These nurses visited homes and schools, providing public health and sanitation information regarding disease causation and prevention. Over time, field nurses and Native people formed a positive working relationship that resulted in the decline of mortality from infectious diseases. Many Native Americans accepted and used Western medicine to fight pathogens, while also continuing Indigenous medicine ways. Nurses helped control tuberculosis, measles, influenza, pneumonia, and a host of gastrointestinal sicknesses. In partnership with the community, nurses quarantined people with contagious diseases, tested for infections, and tracked patients and contacts. Indians turned to nurses and learned about disease prevention. With strong hearts, Indians eagerly participated in the tuberculosis campaign of 1939–40 to x-ray tribal members living on twenty-nine reservations. Through their cooperative efforts, Indians and health-care providers decreased deaths, cases, and misery among the tribes of Southern California.

This text is suitable for students taking Community Health Nursing or for the beginning practitioner in the field of Community Health Nursing. It is designed to provide direction for small-scale community health projects, ranging from about two to eight months in length.