Lau­ra has been work­ing as a Nurse Prac­ti­tion­er for more than a decade. She was the first pri­ma­ry health Nurse Prac­ti­tion­er in WA at a time when NPs were more often employed in hos­pi­tals, par­tic­u­lar­ly in Emer­gency Departments. 

She cur­rent­ly has three jobs. One day a week, she works in West­o­nia 45 min­utes from home, where she runs a clin­ic that is vis­it­ed by a GP every six weeks. In this role she also under­takes home vis­its and pro­vides tele­phone sup­port to the com­mu­ni­ty on the days she is not in town. She also works as a Reg­is­tered Nurse at the South­ern Cross Hos­pi­tal, a 20-minute dri­ve in the oth­er direc­tion. The third project she is involved in is research into the use of Arti­fi­cial Intel­li­gence to enable non-skilled peo­ple to under­take echocardiograms.

When she isn’t nurs­ing, Lau­ra and her part­ner run a wildlife sanc­tu­ary called Par­nanapikur­tu which loose­ly trans­lates as ​‘kan­ga­roo place’ where they res­cue and care for birds, rep­tiles, and kangaroos.

Lau­ra has long advo­cat­ed to local, state and fed­er­al gov­ern­ment for increased fund­ing to sup­port health­care deliv­ery, par­tic­u­lar­ly for Nurse Prac­ti­tion­er ser­vices in rur­al and remote areas she serves in WA. 

She is a strong believ­er in the val­ue of col­lab­o­ra­tion with GPs and has in the past worked more exten­sive­ly with GPs in fund­ed posi­tions. She has not pur­sued self-employ­ment because she val­ues these col­lab­o­ra­tions and under­stands the community’s need for afford­able healthcare.

“With the long wait­ing lists to see a GP, it is cru­cial that part­ner­ships between GPs and NPs are encour­aged in rur­al and remote settings. 

It would cer­tain­ly improve access to speedy health­care deliv­ery,” she says.

“NPs have done a Mas­ters Degree, we have the edu­ca­tion, the skills and the train­ing, but so many of us are work­ing as Reg­is­tered Nurses.”

More Nurse Prac­ti­tion­ers are work­ing in com­mu­ni­ties in the pri­ma­ry health area than before, Lau­ra says. She hopes this trend will con­tin­ue and that NP ser­vices will be pri­ori­tised in areas with lim­it­ed health­care access and pub­lic trans­port, and long GP wait­lists – includ­ing with­in the Wheatbelt.

Lau­ra is grate­ful to receive the Excel­lence in Remote and Iso­lat­ed Health Prac­tice Award, which is her sec­ond this year after receiv­ing the People’s Choice Award at the 2023 Rur­al Health West and WA Coun­try Health Ser­vice Excel­lence Awards. How­ev­er, with her skills and qual­i­fi­ca­tions, she knows she could do more to help the community.

“If win­ning this award helps to pro­mote the val­ue of the Nurse Prac­ti­tion­er role, I’ll be very hap­py,” she says.