Formulating Kiwi-specific tools will help transplant co-ordinator Merryn Jones assist kidney transplant patients.
Live donor kidney transplants are lifesaving but research shows a great number of New Zealanders needing a kidney find it hard to approach friends and family.
Just why that is and how to help patients through the process has occupied the mind of Hawke’s Bay District Health Board Clinical Nurse Specialist Transplant Coordinator Merryn Jones for the five years she has worked in the field. Her work is achieving recognition; the latest the winning of the Birgit Munroe Memorial Scholarship.
The completion of her thesis ‘It’s hard to ask’ in 2017, the publication of her work in the New Zealand Medical Journal last year, and winning the scholarship at the Renal Society of Australasia conference this year, have all helped inform the next step; putting in place tools that will work for New Zealanders.
“It’s not about changing people’s minds so that they will ask for or accept a kidney; it’s about understanding what might be holding them back and seeing if we can help them along the transplant journey,” said Ms Jones.
The reasons people might feel uncomfortable asking a family member or friend include lack of understanding of their own health needs, concern about the potential impact on the donor, cultural constraints, lack of communication skills, their preconception of the response, or having limited numbers of people to approach.
“For some people, it is clearly about having more support and what we need to do is have a way of finding out what support is required, and how we can deliver it at an individual level.”
A questionnaire looking at willingness and motivation to approach potential living donors is being developed by Ms Jones and HBDHB psychologist Liz Ross, and will give the team a clear idea of where help is needed, in order to then provide tailored support. “We want to be sure we are addressing the need, rather than us assuming we know what the need is.”
The tool will be peer-reviewed before being piloted. “We want to make this available across New Zealand when we are sure that we have it right.”
A second initiative is a regional transplant hui being organised in Hastings for 16 October aimed at up-skilling community health workers about transplants. It is hoped the hui, a joint project between Renal Services and Māori Health services, will attract more than 100 community health workers.
“It’s about making sure people who are working with renal patients in the community have some tools in the toolkit with regards to transplant, which is a specialised field. It’s about empowering those health workers, making sure they have answers to questions their patients might ask, and knowing where to go to for more information.”
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