In this video episode of Let Women Talk, HIV community advocate Sarah Feagan speaks with Rebecca Houghton — Nurse Unit Manager at Sydney Sexual Health Centre, who presented a poster at the 2019 Australasian HIV&AIDS Conference held in Perth on 17-19 September. Rebecca speaks about a pilot health workforce education program that will eventually roll out into other publicly-funded sexual health services in New South Wales — one which supports a nurse-led approach to screening for non-AIDS related co-morbidities, such as cardiovascular disease, kidney and liver disease, malignancies and cognitive impairment.
About the poster
Internationally, nurse-led models of care have been demonstrated to be cost effective, improve patient care outcomes and enhance service efficiencies.
With an increasingly number people with HIV accessing publicly-funded sexual health services, nurses are ideally placed to provide holistic annual assessments in conjunction with the interdisciplinary team. This model of care would allow for a more targeted use of physicians time for clients requiring more complex interventions.
Related links
- Download the poster [PDF] — A NSW pilot education program supporting a Nurse-led approach to screening for non-AIDS related co-morbidities
Find out about Let Women Talk
Let Women Talk is a NAPWHA community-led health literacy initiative where HIV community advocates incorporate their rich perspectives and diverse lived HIV experiences back into strengthening community health responses — where women design and develop the health content and interventions that they want to see and hear. The initiative is one of many activities forming part of the HIV Health Literacy Framework Project, a NAPWHA project supported through the funding of ViiV Healthcare Australia.
Hear other video episodes
In this series, Sarah Feagan reports back from the 2019 Australasian HIV&AIDS Conference aiming to translate research back into community practice.
- Let Women Talk — Episode 01 — Sarah Feagan & Deborah Bateson
- Let Women Talk — Episode 02 — Sarah Feagan & Mina John
- Let Women Talk — Episode 03 — Sarah Feagan & Janet Gare
- Let Women Talk — Episode 04 — Sarah Feagan & Jenny Hoy
- Let Women Talk — Episode 05 — Sarah Feagan & Diane Lloyd
- Let Women Talk — Episode 07 — Sarah Feagan & Kirsty Machon
- Let Women Talk — Episode 08 — Sarah Feagan & Carole Khaw
- Let Women Talk — Episode 10 — Sarah Feagan & Melinda Hassall
- Let Women Talk — Episode 11 — Sarah Feagan & Shoshana Rosenberg
- Let Women Talk — Episode 12 — Sarah Feagan & Liz Duck-Chong
- Let Women Talk — Episode 13 — Sarah Feagan & Moira Wilson
- Let Women Talk — Episode 14 — Sarah Feagan & Allie Carter
Who’s in this interview?
Rebecca Houghton is the Nurse Unit Manager at Sydney Sexual Health Centre (SSHC) which is part of the South Eastern Sydney Local Health District. SSHC provide general clinic services for testing, treatment and management of sexually transmissible infections (STIs), including HIV. They also have additional clinics for gay men, bisexual men and other men who have sex with men; young people aged 24 and under; Chinese and Thai sex workers; people who don’t have symptoms and need to test in a hurry.
Sarah Feagan is a queer women who has been living with HIV since 2008. She is the previous chair of Positive Women Victoria and has recently joined the team at Living Positive Victoria as a Peer Navigator. She also the Vice President of NAPWHA. Sarah is a co-facilitator of Phoenix for Women and the Positive Leadership Development Institute (PLDi). Sarah has unique approach to her advocacy and is inspired by the lived experience of the body positive to inform her practice. Sarah’s advocacy spans the from the grass roots all the way up to high level governance. She has a global outlook with a local focus to bringing the community along with her.
