Jane Salvage

What's happening to nursing?

British nursing has notched up many successes in the past decade. Nursing practice, underpinned by radical reform of nursing education, has shifted from a task centred approach towards personalised care; other innovations have improved the quality of care; and research and critical thinking are flourishing. It is an impressive record. Against this backdrop, understanding why Christine Hancock, that most lucid and reasonable of union leaders, should find herself leading the Royal College of Nursing in an assault on the government may be difficult. Yet, far from feeling buoyed up by their recent achievements, nurses are experiencing what Carpenter calls “a much deeper sense of betrayal than the difference between 1% and 3% in pay (p 338).”1 Something has gone badly wrong. While nurses” concern over pay is real, it has also acted as a trigger for their discontent over the state of the profession and the …

Health Care in Central Asia

Rating: ![Graphic][1] ![Graphic][2] ![Graphic][3] . ![][4] Before September 11 2001 and its sequelae, the five former Soviet republics of central Asia were little known to the rest of the world. Their proximity to Afghanistan has raised their profile, with foreign troops using them as bases and refugees streaming across their borders. The fledgling nations of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan have been through hard times since unexpectedly gaining independence in 1990-1. Every aspect of life was affected, often for the worse, to the point of a bloody civil war in Tajikistan. I first saw the region in 1992 with World Health Organization teams visiting Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan in their new … [1]: /embed/inline-graphic-1.gif [2]: /embed/inline-graphic-2.gif [3]: /embed/inline-graphic-3.gif [4]: /embed/graphic-1.gif