New trade union campaign
The ANF has launched a new nationwide campaign, featuring cinema, TV and radio ads, to raise the awareness about the important role of nurses, AINs and midwives in the health system.
Above: An ANF campaign pic
One of the aged care sector’s biggest trade unions, the Australian Nursing Federation (ANF), has launched a new national campaign to raise the awareness of the valuable contribution nurses and midwives make throughout the Australian health system.
Australia’s nurses and midwives. You couldn’t be in better hands aims to showcase the invaluable work that nurses, assistants in nursing and midwives do, day in and day out in communities, aged care facilities and hospitals across Australia.
It will also attempt to attract more nurses and midwives to the profession, while portraying their jobs in a positive and meaningful light.
ANF federal secretary, Lee Thomas, said the new campaign is a product of long-running consultations with the union’s members about what it means to be a nurse, midwife or assistant in nursing, how they feel about the health system, and how they think the health care industry needs to change.
“The campaign is partly in response to Australia’s national nursing shortage and it will promote positive images of nursing and midwifery that will in turn attract people to the nursing and midwifery professions,” said Ms Thomas.
“We want this positive campaign to focus on the significant contribution nurses and midwives make to the health system every day, and the trust the community have in them to deliver safe patient care while they are being treated and cared for.”
“We will be working with our ANF state branches, other stakeholders and importantly, the wider community to deliver the solutions we want so we can achieve better and safer healthcare for all Australians.”
The new campaign features a two-minute movie advertisement showing real-life nurses and midwives filmed as they work at three different hospitals, which will go live in cinemas around the country tonight.
No paid actors were used in the advertisements, only 22 nurses and midwives, and members of the community who appear as patients. Lawrence Creative oversaw the production of the advertisements.
“…They are real nurses and midwives who graciously allowed themselves to be filmed fly on the wall style, as they went about their work treating and caring for their patients, from the very young to the very old.”
The advertisements will air until December. They supplement two advertisements already on air – a 60-second TV commercial and a radio advertisement, as well as posters, leaflets, bumper stickers and a new campaign website.
The campaign coincides with new national figures showing further growth in the ANF’s membership across the Australian health system – with membership now standing at 220,000.
“We have continued to experience unprecedented growth in ANF membership across a full-range of health settings, including private and public hospitals, aged care facilities, medical practices and community medical centres.
“We believe this continued growth is the result of the very successful campaigns the ANF has run both nationally and by our state and territory branches, working on behalf of all of our existing and new members.”
The new campaign also follows in the footsteps of the earlier ongoing Because We Care (BWC) a campaign, which commenced in 2009 aimed to improve Australia’s under-resourced aged care sector.
The ANF said it will continue to lobby the federal government and key stakeholders to ensure the goals of the BWC campaign are met, and the ANF’s state and territory branches will continue the “on the ground” campaigning at a local level along with the new positive nursing and midwifery campaign.
