19th April 2016 Two Professors from the University of Sydney; Professor Jill White AM and Professor Mary Chiarella are currently in Nuku’alofa, leading a consultation process to review the Nurses Act 2001.
Professor Jill White AM said the purpose of the review was to safeguard the public.
“We have been invited here to assist in the rewriting of the Nurse Practitioners and Mid-Wife Act, this is about public safety,” she says.
“This is about making sure that all of the systems are in place for the nurses to be practicing to the very best of their abilities and putting system into place to make sure that patients are safe.”
Professor White AM stated that some of the key areas they were looking to review included the functions of the board and the handling of complaints.
“Some of the review is in the board, the composition of the board, how it works and the functions of the board but mostly the complaints system.”
Professor White AM said that this was the first time for the Act to be reviewed since 2001.
“If we do this piece of work really well, it will be in place for Tonga for about 10 or 15 years, they did that in 2001 and then there were some revision in 2004 and a very minor one in 2014 so this is really the first real review of the Act.”
Dr ‘Amelia Afuha’amango from the Ministry of Health said hopefully by next year the work to amend the legislation will be completed.
“Amending legislation takes a long time. They will make their recommendations to us for approval and then we will work together with the Solicitor’s General Office into drafting of the legislation in accordance with what we have agreed on and hopefully by next year we can complete it.”
ENDS
Issued by the: Ministry of Meteorology, Energy, Information, Disaster Management, Environment, Climate Change and Communications
