Bridging the 'standards' gap.

• Jurisdiction: Australia
• Author: Levett, Coral
• Date: 01 February 2013

Having just attended my fifth South Pacific Nurses Forum, held in Melbourne, I've once again had the privilege of meeting many nurses and midwives from our neighbouring countries in the South Pacific to share professional knowledge, expertise and research findings. Industrial and regulatory issues important to our professions are also included in the mix. This year, the Australian Nursing Federation was the proud host of this biennial meeting with delegates from Tonga, Samoa, Kiribati, New Zealand, Fiji, Papua New Guinea, Solomon Islands, Tokelau, Niue, Vanuatu, Cook Islands, Nauru and of course Australia in attendance.

Although many new and exciting topics were raised for discussion and debate, it occurred to me there was one recurrent theme that had consistently presented in all of the forums I attended. This theme is around the very strong desire of the island nations to be able to have automatic reciprocity in nursing registration with Australia and New Zealand to enable both undergraduate clinical placement experience...