A profile of Wellington’s urological nursing services

08 November 2011

A profile of Wellington’s urological nursing services

Kia Ora and greetings from ‘Windy Wellington.’ I am thankful for this opportunity to present a profile about the urological practice of the Capital and Coast District Health Board (DHB) located in Wellington, considered as the world’s southernmost capital city. The centre of government in New Zealand, Wellington earned the moniker ‘Windy City’ due to the presence of strong winds in the region.

The greater Wellington area has two District Health Boards, Capital & Coast DHB and Hutt Valley DHB. Capital & Coast DHB operates two hospitals, the Wellington Regional Hospital and the Kenepuru Community Hospital. It provides health care to approximately 250,000 people living in the greater Wellington area. The urology service also serves anadditional 141,000 people who are residing in the catchment area of the Hutt Valley DHB since urology service is not available there.

The urology service is operated by the Wellington Regional Hospital. We currently have four urologists, namely: Mr. Richard Robinson, Mr. Andrew Kennedy- Smith, Mr. Rod Studd and Mr. Grant Russell. All of the consultants have a different sub-specialty or area of interest. We have one house offi cer and three registrars, two of which are on the urology trainee programme.

The urology outpatients department has a custombuilt unit in which we do most diagnostic procedures including fl exible cystoscopies, prostate biopsies, and urodynamic studies. We also perform fi ducial marker insertion, stent removals, and minor urology surgical procedures. This is staffed by three full-time nurses and two part-time urology nurses. Robert (Bob) Hale, our clinical nurse specialist, is involved in urology education. This includes educating new graduate nurses, ambulance staff and
medical students in catheterisation, and ongoing education for ward and urology outpatient staff in all aspects of urology. Bob participates in the daily ward round and management of ward patients. He is also involved with community groups outside of the hospital, participating in support groups like the cancer society. Bob runs numerous nurse-led clinics including the ongoing follow-up of patients who have undergone radical prostatectomy and TURP surgery.

 I and Lyn Stewart are full-time urology nurses and Karen Nistor and Margaret Riordan work on a part-time basis. We are involved in clinic preparation and assisting in urological procedures such as fl exible cystoscopy, prostate biopsies, video urodynamic studies and minor urological procedures. We also do numerous nurse-led clinics including BCG immunotherapy clinics, instruct patients on self catheterisation, TURP follow-up clinics, fl ow rates and PVR’s, trial removal of catheters (TROC), radical prostatectomy follow-ups, non-video urodynamics and other intravesical therapies. We are supported in the community by three specialty continence nurses and many great district nurses.We have one urology theatre where operations are performed four days per week. This is currently managed by our urology theatre charge nurse Nitin Busgeet, who unfortunately is due to leave to take up a position in Australia and will later be replaced by Deborah Jones. We also have an acute theatre that is available for urgent cases.

The urology ward is a 36-bed ward which we share the orthopaedic team. We have allocated urology inpatient beds. We also use the short-stay and second stage recovery wards for our day-stay and overnight patients who underwent smaller surgeries. While the Wellington Urology Department is relatively small in terms of the size of the nursing staff, we manage our large numbers of patients through excellent teamwork and communication. The nurses are well supported by the medical team and are encouraged to contribute to patient care.

On behalf of the Wellington team I would like to wish you all the best and we hope that we will have the opportunity to participate in one of the EAUN meetings in the near future.

Shelley De Boer, Rn
Wellington Regional Hospital
Urology Department
Wellington (NZ)

Shelley.DeBoer@ccdhb.org.nz

Article from European Urology Today, volume 23, No. 5

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