What a great event the New Zealand (NZ) National Division of Infection Control Nurses hosted from 13th-15th August in Hamilton in the North Island. NZ Infection Control Practitioners (ICPs) are a really enthusiastic group of professionals. I first attended their annual conference in the early 1990s and have had the distinct pleasure of being invited back several times since. This 2008 conference was fantastic and a testimony to how much progress the ICPs have made in the past few years.
While infection prevention practice in NZ is similar to that here in Australia, the NZ ICPs have faced and conquered some unique challenges different to ours. NZ geography means that getting together for face-to-face meetings can be difficult. As a result many members make the effort to attend the annual conference and to use that as their best opportunity to network and update on cutting edge research and trends.
Being such a small country in terms of population (the old joke goes something along the lines of there are more sheep in NZ than people!) it means that NZ is an even smaller dot on the global medical industry market than Australia. Australia is less than 1% of the global market so NZ must be closer to zero. Given that figure it is difficult for NZ to garner any overwhelming support from medical manufacturers although several do generously support the Division year after year. Interestingly, NZ does not yet have tough regulations regarding medical devices. Australia has a statutory body, the Therapeutic Goods Administration, (TGA) which tests medical devices and supportive claims prior to approving them for marketing and use in Australia. The TGA operates similarly to the US FDA. Without this safeguard NZ is often seen by manufacturers as the perfect test site – easy to enter and reasonably well developed to be useful in predicting trends. This can mean that ICPs in NZ have to be extra vigilant in their efforts to keep up with products used in their facilities to prevent inadvertent use of unsafe or harmful equipment or products. In the very near future Australia and NZ will join and harmonise their approach to medical device regulation and both countries will benefit from that process.
And there are many more stories about ICPs from “across the ditch”. Our Kiwi friends are some of the friendliest ICPs in the world. They love to party and every year their conference social event is a themed dinner. This year’s theme was “Showboat”. I have never seen so much taffeta, silk, ribbons, bows and ICPs all in the same place. What a great night it was.
We were also blessed to have the Immediate Past APIC President, Denise Murphy, as one of the keynote speakers at the conference. What a great job she did in “bridging the gap” too. No doubt opportunities for ICPs all around the world to meet and share their experiences will increase over the next few decades. Given it’s strong history and this most recent example, I have no doubt that the NZ annual conference will remain a constant source of inspiration to local and international ICPs. Visit them next year from 26-29th August and you too can experience the WOW of NZ.
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on Sunday, August 24th, 2008 at 2:13 pm and is filed under Australian Healthcare, International Activity.
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