Bankstown Sports Club Nursing Scholarships to Improve Lives

Cardiac care and health and safety at Bankstown Hospital are set to be revitalised thanks to two local nurses and Bankstown Sports Club.

Nicole Morrison, Cardiac Clinical Nursing Consultant at Bankstown Hospital, and Dominic Le Leivre, the Patient Safety Manager, were awarded 2010 Bankstown Sports Club Nurses Scholarships. Club president John Murray presented the scholarships on International Nurses Day, May 12.

2010 is the fifth year the scholarships have been awarded as part of a five year agreement with Bankstown Sports that provided $40,000 per year to the hospital, $200,000 in total.

Nicole received the award to attend the Cardiac Society of Australia and New Zealand's 58th Annual Scientific Meeting in Adelaide.

Dominic received the award to attend the 8th Australasian Conference on Safety and Quality in Health Care in Perth.

After 15 years working as a nurse at Bankstown Hospital Nicole says the conference will allow her to bring back a range of useful and potentially life –saving practices that could be implementd in the hospital's cardiac ward.

"The conference will open up to me a 12 month to five year projection of things that will change in cardiology," Nicole says.

"It will show what the future holds and what we can do to improve our clinical practice.

"Over the course of the conference so many ideas will be flying around and I imagine I'll come away with a vibrancy to take new directions for the next few years. It will improve me as a nurse and possibly result in improving the life quality of patients."

Nicole says the fact Bankstown Sports Club has been such a committed supporter of nursing in the region is another reason why patients receive the best care at her hospital.

"It is so important that patients feel at home or part of the family when they come to hospital," she says.

"We were talking about this the other day, about how we are a family and Bankstown Sports Club's help means we get to keep that family feel."

Dominic says the conference will allow him to develop professionally in his role as well as gauging where trends are heading internationally.

"It will help me find solutions to health and safety issues for patients as well as keeping abreast of the latest developments."

Dominic says the funding support from Bankstown Sports Club is "amazing".

"You simply wouldn't be able to get to these sorts of things otherwise."

Over the five years Bankstown Sports Club has supported Bankstown Hospital and International Nurses Day it has allowed 70 nurses to complete graduate certificates in specialty areas, begin Masters degrees and doctorates or to attend international and domestic conferences.

Contact: Gifford Lee, Quick Thinking Communications, 0406 757 256, 02 9939 3555 or gifford@qtcommunications.com.