NZNO Conference & AGM | Challenging the System | 21-22 September 2023

Welcome

NZNO President's welcome

Leading the way: challenging and changing the health system

NZNO President Anne DanielsNurses face challenges everyday in their practice. These challenges can be considered from many world views or lenses, for example te Tiriti o Waitangi, equity, parity, gender, ethical, professional, legal, ecological, personal, or political and many more.

Nurses, midwives, health care assistants and other health care workers use critical thinking to problem-solve and then act, in a health system that is not fit for purpose. In doing so we challenge ourselves to find solutions that we can use to solve the problems and we become well versed in looking outside the square to find those solutions.

No matter where we work, NZNO members face similar challenges in their work environment. Many of these challenges relate to just getting through our work day, in a work environment controlled and led by others.

Over the last year, NZNO members have started to rise up and stand up to those who continue to ask us all to do more with less, with little recognition, respect, or recompense. NZNO members have shown that they are pushing back, not just for appropriate conditions and pay but to change the health, safety, and wellbeing of their patients, families, whānau, communities and the nation.

We are doing that by disrupting the status quo. We are fighting back to realise our Maranga Mai goals, and to develop a new way of seeing the role of the nurse. How we shape the role of the nurse going forward will prepare us to meet the challenges of today and the future, through leadership, challenge and change. Together we will be the change we want to see.

NZNO President, Anne Daniels