Hospitals and Healthcare

Instead of asking how to fix the rural GP shortage, we should look at the bigger picture and ask how nurse practitioners could work to their full capacity.

Nursing bodies say increasing the role of nurses – not the Medicare rebate – is the solution to Australia’s bulk-billing crisis

Improving the health and welfare of Aboriginal people has always been front and centre for nurse practitioner Lesley Salem.
A fly-in fly-out remote area nurse, Lesley currently works as a generalist and chronic disease NP in Doomadgee, a remote Aboriginal community in far north-west Queensland, as well as nearby Mornington Island.

Her scope of care includes assessing clients, performing diagnostic examinations and tests, and treating and managing them. She also runs a skin clinic at the local school, care at the aged care facility, daily clinics, and care at health promotion days.

In June, she was awarded the Member of the Order of Australia (AM) in the 2022 Queen’s Birthday Honours List for significant service to nursing and to Indigenous health.