Student nurses on health watch at Te Matatini

A festival goer at Te Matatini has expressed her gratitude to a WITT student nurse/nēhi tauira who identified an irregular pulse while doing a basic health check and recommended further medical investigation which may have saved her life.

Nicki Spring – Ngā Ruahine, Taranaki – went to the nib health insurance stand at Te Matatini, the national Kapa Haka festival at the Bowl of Brooklands, where third-year WITT nursing ākonga have been providing free health checks.

Nicki, whose whakapapa is to Taranaki though she now lives in Ngāruawāhia, decided to get checked after feeling faint while attending the festival on Tuesday.  The check-up included having her blood pressure and pulse taken as well as a HBA1c, or pre-diabetes finger-prick test based on initial results.

Nursing student/Nēhi tauita Kalani O'Carroll-Haami (Te Atiawa, Ngāti Ruanui) found Nicki’s blood pressure was normal but was concerned about her “racing pulse.”  Kalani consulted with nursing kaiako/tutor Trish Sison and together they recommended immediate follow-up with St John’s Ambulance medics on site and walked with Nicki to ensure she got there safely.

The medics carried out heart monitoring for suspected tachycardia (increased heart rate) and took her by ambulance to Health New Zealand /Te Whatu Ora (Taranaki Base Hospital) for an urgent assessment. She spent the next eight hours there where she received intravenous fluids and beta blockers to slow her heart rate before being discharged. Nicki returned to Te Matatini the next day to thank/mihi to Kalani (who was not on duty that day).

“I was so impressed that a student nurse picked up my heart issue through the pulse check,” she says. “But it’s not only the awesome medical treatment I got – it was the manaakitanga, that she took me to St John’s herself to make sure I got there. I might have just gone and sat down somewhere and not made it,” adds Nicki, was preoccupied with caring for two kaumatua and her partner with a leg injury.

“It’s so important that the carers get cared for too. I’m so grateful to the student nurse.”

Committed to addressing health inequities

Tara Malone, WITT nursing tutor who has been with the nursing ākonga at the festival, says; “It’s been a great opportunity for our third-year ākonga to put some of their core nursing skills to use in a major event like Te Matatini. So, for our student, Kalani, to have picked up this person’s underlying health issue that led to getting the urgent treatment is a wonderful outcome.”

Tara says WITT’s nursing programme kaupapa is strongly committed to teaching nursing students/nēhi tauira to develop an understanding of health inequities faced by tangata whenua resulting from the long-term impact of colonisation. This includes understanding the role of Registered Nurses in addressing these inequities as partners in Te Tiriti o Waitangi.

Sarah McBride, Head of Iwi Initiatives for nib New Zealand, says her Tamaki Makaurau-based organisation is focussed on improving Māori health as one of the pillars of the business. The best way of doing that is through prevention, she says.

On the first day of the festival, the nib stall had 80 people through for blood pressure checks, with 15 of those having a HBA1c test based on the result of this.

“A lot of people didn’t know they had potential issues so it’s good to see that prevention making a bit of difference,” she says. “For this to work best we need nurses here for their expertise in doing the tests and being able to give some guidance. Having the WITT student nurses is a great opportunity for us to incorporate that growth in wellbeing - they’ve been amazing.”

Captions: (top) Nicki Spring with WITT tutor Trish Sison at the nib health insurance stand, the day after Nicki’s racing pulse was identified by a WITT nurse during a free health check.