By Anneli Knight
Joy Nugent has always identified with the term entrepreneur because she has never been one to follow the rules. But unlike most entrepreneurs, this 69-year-old palliative care nurse is not driven by a desire to create a fortune.
''I'm not good at just fitting into an institution and just sticking to the rules. There's always been something in me that was 20 years ahead of my time,'' says Nugent who this year won the regional category of social entrepreneur of the year for her work building up not-for-profit organisation, NurseLink, to help nurses set up their own private practice.
In 2008 she will be launching a national marketing campaign to let nurses know about the training courses that she has been developing over 20 years, since she first opened her own practice in Adelaide.
She aspires to give nurses the opportunity to employ themselves and she's set to lobby the government to give nurses the Medicare rebate and status afforded to other healthcare professionals.
''I've just seen nursing going through a crisis. We are almost a dying breed. Nurses haven't got autonomy in practice and what I've tried to do is put together a package setting out the administrative responsibilities that nurses need,'' Nugent says.
''If a good nurse is a heart person they are not normally a head or business person as well. Over 20 years I've tried to put a mode of business into practice.''
Nugent's package of computer training manuals includes basic information such as how to set up an office, create a filing system and employ staff. Nurses pay a small set up fee and pay five per cent of gross professional fees they generate. These funds are then reinvested into the not-for-profit organisation.
''Over the years when we've tested this out there has been enormous interest from nurses who would love to work out of organisations. They'd like to work in the community and have a relationship basis to their patients. A little bit like the old fashioned GP that has disappeared, that is a category that nurses could follow.''
As well as outlining office skills, the training manual also aims to put 'heart' back into nursing. Nugent worries that modern nursing education in Australia overlooks the most important element of nursing.
''We've got a whole emphasis on the academic head - learning facts and figures. I just wish that nursing as a profession would take a good look at itself. There is an art to nursing - people remember you by the way you make them feel,'' she says.
''I grew up in the old system when we had these ward sisters who mentored us. Now we have agency staff and nobody seems to be in control. Economic rationalism says we can only have so many staff. Nurses introduce themselves to their patient but might never see them again. We've lost that therapeutic relationship that I think nurses working out in the community could bring back,'' Nugent says.
''When you look at nursing I see that you get better care in hospitality. When you book into a hotel you are made to feel more special.''
Nugent has developed a holistic nursing practice around four key needs of patients: physical, intellectual, emotional and spiritual.
Nugent calls herself an ''Agnostic, Buddhist, Catholic'' and says this four pronged approach to healthcare addresses universal human needs.
''We need to make people feel cared for and confident and secure and empowered. If you feel good about yourself you don't need to get to the doctor. This mind body connection is incredibly strong,'' she says.
Nugent has encountered many financial difficulties in running her practice offering in-home aged palliative care. She says she has considered giving up her practice and NurseLink several times over the past two decades but someone or something has always intervened to keep her on track. She now turns over $700,000 a year and employs 50 carers in her work.
In 2008 NurseLink will be launching its national advertising campaign and promoting its package through DVDs via the internet.
''It's very hard to be an entrepreneur and do something different because you traditionally get shot at. People say `You can't do it, you're only a nurse' and I say to them 'look, people have to pay for what I offer'.
''I'd like the marketplace to be my judge'.''