The Nursing Profession Council of Catalonia has presented a document regulating nursing prescription in this autonomous community which contains a drug catalog of those drugs that could be prescribed by Catalan nurses, some of which are acquired OTC by the users and are thus sold without a prescription.

This report, which includes the first catalog of products and drugs that conform drug prescribing by the nurse under her sole discretion, will be defended by the Catalan Minister of Health, Marina Gelin, in the next few days for its approval.

According to the last report published by the Academic Teaching and Continued Education Department of the Grupo Hospital de Madrid (HM), the 2006/2007 academic course witnessed the strong bet made by the centre on the promotion, implementation and development of academic teaching and continued education in the different hospitals. An example of this is the recent accreditation of the Hospital de Madrid Montepríncipe as the first private university hospital in the Community of MadriMr.

In the current academic year, academic teaching infrastructures have significantly improved to service new projects (classrooms for laboratory technicians in Pathological Anatomy and Diagnostic Imaging) and to promote activities such as those carried out at the “Aula” of the Hospital de MadriMr.

Moreover, the opening of the Hospital de Madrid Norte Sanchinarro and the Clara Campal Integral Cancer Centre, inaugurated by her Majesty de Queen, has translated into a significant increase in academic resources, thanks not only to the acquisition of the most modern technology, on occasions, unique in Spain (high field open magnetic resonance, intra and extracranial radiosurgery, etc.), but also thanks to the availability of the best professionals and specialists, structured into multidisciplinary working teas, with weekely meetings for case discussion and elaboration of protocols and medical practice guidelines.

Through December 2nd the Hospital de Alcorcón Foundation in Madrid will host the exhibit entitled “Health in populations with less resources”, organised by the Foundation for the Development of Nursing (FUDEN) in collaboration with the Council for Health, Immigration and Cooperation of the Community of Madrid (CAM). The exhibit will ne held on the first floor of the mentioned hospital, in the classroom hallway.

This exhibit, part of the project on which FUDEN is working, called “Citizen Movement for a wordl with less differnces”, includes visits to fourteen hospitals in the Community of Madrid and to the emergency care service SUMMA 112. It will feature fourteen panels displaying photographs, charts and texts on the main health problems that affect the world such as paediatric and maternal mortality, HIV, paludism, tuberculosis, environmental factors or access to essential drugs.

Over 400 professionals from 23 countries met in this edition dedicated to gain a further insight into the role of the nurse in the field of research and how this role translates into practice in healthcare activities.

Nursing professionals have been doing research for nearly forty years, and as a result, traditional nursing has paved the way to a new type of nursing that continues to cure but engages in research also. The incorporation of this important professional group into research activities materialises in several ways, from convincing Spanish women to advocate breastbreeding and nurse their babies for longer to decreasing the number of acquired infections by hospitalised patients.

Despite this late incorporation, Spanish nurses have an excellent, internationally recognised, level of research, which has made it possible for the only work accepted in Europe within the VI Framework Programmed relating to nursing to be led by Spain.

Research in nursing is present in all areas of care, including maternity and paediatric nursing, palliative care, ageing, prevention and care of victims of domestic violence or infectious diseases. In one word, it is presents in the most prevanlent problems that affect the users of the National Health System.

With the aim of conveying an alert message to society about vascular diseases that have nowadays become the leading cause of death in Spanish society, even before cancer, the Ministry of Health has launched a new campaign on healthy habits that will be in effect until the 9th of December of this year.
 
With a budget of  3.4 million Euros, the Ministry has based this campaign on six basic points: YES to a healthy diet, YES to regular exercise, YES to weight control, YES to quit smoking, YES to control risk factors.
 
In the case of subjects suffering from a cardiovascular disease, the following recommendations also apply: YES to the involvement and responsibility in the control of their disease, YES to compliance with doctor’s orders, YES, to compliance with appropriate drug treatment, YES to a good control of blood glucose levels, cholesterol and blood pressure, YES to a low fat, low salt and low cholesterol diet, YES to the intake of fruits and vegetables (they contain fibre and vitamins that help improve glycemia).