BANDAR SERI BEGAWAN

ALL NURSES should aim to deliver high quality care to meet patient satisfaction, said the acting chief executive officer (CEO) of the Renal Services Department at the Ministry of Health (MoH).

Speaking at the Leadership in Renal Nursing Workshop over the weekend, Hjh Roshima Hj Kamal said that high quality, effective and efficient service would make their patients happy as patient care was of utmost priority in the nursing profession.

“As leaders and future leaders, your role is to plan, coordinate, supervise and manage your team to achieve this,” she said, highlighting the need for leaders who can work well with others.

In keeping with rapid change and development of healthcare systems, the acting CEO said they also need leaders who could face various challenges and would be able to cope in any situation while remaining productive and making positive changes.

She noted that leaders must have confidence in contributing their ideas from experience, knowledge and skills learned in order to implement changes and improvements to the system.

“I believe, all of you here will have the potential to become a driving force that can actively advocate for a positive change for the efficient and effective functioning of our healthcare system,” she said in her speech during the opening ceremony at The Centrepoint Hotel, Gadong.

As future leaders, Hjh Roshima advised the nurses to “become the role models with positive attitudes and have the value of a true leader”.

Expressing her support to the nurses for their hard work and dedication, she said the nursing workforce was one of the most valuable assets for the healthcare system as “you cannot run a dialysis centre efficiently and safely” without them.

“Whenever possible, we will try to give incentives in the form of reward and recognition to those (deserving) to increase staff morale,” she added.

She pointed out that there were evidences which suggested that investing in increasing the knowledge of nurses and improving the working environment were the key strategies to retaining their nursing staff.

The acting CEO encouraged all the participating nurses at the workshop to incorporate all the knowledge they gained into their practice.

Themed “Changing the Way We Think – Shifting Paradigm: Towards Excellence and Innovation in Nephrology Nursing”, the pre-conference workshop was held on the sidelines of the Brunei Nephrology Symposium 2015.

Foreign medical journals state that over the past 30 years, renal nursing has evolved into a specialty that requires both technical skills, as well as clinical expertise in treating patients with chronic kidney disease (CKD).

Medical experts also predicted that the demand for this type of nurses would increase as the number of patients diagnosed with CKD is expected to grow.

The Brunei Times