The Wire

The assault of a nurse last month in the Torres Strait has proven once again the danger of single nurse posts in remote areas. The twenty-seven-year-old was the first and only health officer posted on Mabuiag Island and had been working there for a few months before she was assaulted. The South Australian branch of the Australian Nurses Federation has been working on abolishing single nurse posts for many years now. The question is why other states haven’t followed suit. Nurse and Vice President of the Council of Remote Area Nurses of Australia Inc (CRANA), Sue Kildea, tells of her personal experience working in a single nurse post.