CRANAplus extends its appre­ci­a­tion to mem­bers who par­tic­i­pat­ed in our 2021 mem­ber­ship sur­vey. Your con­tin­ued feed­back is essen­tial to CRANAplus and informs devel­op­ment of our ser­vices, val­ues, and areas of focus based on the issues of great­est impor­tance to you. Read on for an overview of our findings.

Why mem­bers con­tin­ue to work remote

One of the ques­tions we asked was ​“What moti­vates you to con­tin­ue work­ing in remote or rur­al prac­tice?” Your respons­es were var­ied, but the below answers express some of the most com­mon themes:

• “Love the chal­lenges and auton­o­my remote has.”
• “Mak­ing a dif­fer­ence to the health of those liv­ing in a remote area.”
• “The coun­try, the peo­ple, the lifestyle.”
• “Being a part of a small community.”
• “Being able to direct and be instru­men­tal in the direc­tion where the clin­i­cal care is going.”
• The abil­i­ty to ​“learn new skills”.
• “The vari­a­tion to work prac­tices and the var­ied patients.”
• “The oppor­tu­ni­ty to be val­ued for the work I do.”
• “Know­ing that the bush is on my doorstep.”
• “Being on Country.”
• The chal­lenges, com­pli­cat­ed clin­i­cal presentations.”

How COVID-19 impact­ed members

You also shared how COVID-19 had impact­ed you as a health pro­fes­sion­al. Here’s just a few ways COVID-19 impact­ed respondents:

• Increased work­load and work hours.
• Increased men­tal exhaus­tion and anx­i­ety, includ­ing about catch­ing the virus, and com­pound­ed by the fact it has been hard­er to see fam­i­ly and friends.
• Result­ed in staff short­ages and oth­er staffing and employ­ment issues.
• Restrict­ed move­ments due to quar­an­tine and bor­der restrictions.
• Changed the role of staff (e.g., tele­health, vac­ci­na­tions). For some, this was a pos­i­tive pro­fes­sion­al devel­op­ment oppor­tu­ni­ty; for oth­ers, an addi­tion­al bur­den on extreme workload.
• Made it nec­es­sary to dis­pel mis­in­for­ma­tion, while increas­ing the risk of aggression.
• Increased focus on infec­tion con­trol practices.
• Made it hard­er to access edu­ca­tion and con­fer­ences, while mak­ing COVID-19 relat­ed edu­ca­tion necessary.

How can the sec­tor do better?

It was hum­bling to find that our mem­bers expe­ri­ence CRANAplus liv­ing its val­ues (97%), and that you align most close­ly with our val­ues of Safe­ty, Integri­ty, and Respect.

You also told us that it is impor­tant that you are recog­nised, sup­port­ed, and your voice is ampli­fied and heard.

Respon­dents valued:

• “Belong­ing to an organ­i­sa­tion that under­stands our work environment”
• “That an organ­i­sa­tion big­ger than me has a voice for remote nurs­ing in our government.”
• “The sense that some­one is fight­ing for us at a high­er level.”
• “Under­stand­ing us as a unique group of pro­fes­sion­als (and) care givers!”

Your par­tic­i­pa­tion in the sur­vey has affirmed our under­stand­ing of how impor­tant our advo­ca­cy is to members.

It’s invit­ed us to dou­ble down on our deter­mi­na­tion to advo­cate at all lev­els of gov­ern­ment for pos­i­tive change.

You told us that, for the sec­tor to tru­ly thrive, we would need to see:

• Improved staff secu­ri­ty, includ­ing safer accom­mo­da­tion and nev­er alone policies.
• Greater First Peo­ples engage­ment and employment.
• Mean­ing­ful action towards social deter­mi­nants of health, such as improved Indige­nous housing.
• More staff, greater staff reten­tion, and flex­i­ble work arrangements.
• Ade­quate fund­ing, includ­ing for edu­ca­tion access.
• An estab­lished remote area nurs­ing path­way, pos­si­bly includ­ing finan­cial incentives.
• Increased work­place sup­port, skilled man­age­ment, and improved fatigue management.

Rest assured, that’s not every­thing you iden­ti­fied. We val­ue every per­spec­tive that was shared by mem­bers and will be using all your respons­es to help deter­mi­nate our actions in 2022 and beyond.

Thank you for hav­ing your say

In con­junc­tion with ini­tia­tives such as our Nurs­ing and Mid­wifery Round­table, these results help us to under­stand what we are doing well and to iden­ti­fy emerg­ing pri­or­i­ties. Thank you for hav­ing your say, and for your con­tin­ued com­mit­ment to rur­al and remote health. It’s fan­tas­tic to have you as part of the CRANAplus community.

We take this oppor­tu­ni­ty to encour­age you to make the most of your full mem­ber­ship ben­e­fits and to real­ly max­imise the sup­ports and resources avail­able to you through CRANAplus.

Kather­ine Leary
Exec­u­tive Direc­tor of Cor­po­rate Ser­vices
CRANAplus