Formation: 1992
Membership: Total 200, including 78 nurses, 30 physiotherapists, 17 urologists, 9 GPs, 8 gynaecologists, 7 geriatricians, 3 paediatricians, 10 community, 21 rest homes and 17 commercial members.
Funding: Regular funding of NZ$ 16,000.
The New Zealand Continence Association has been going through a process of change. A new constitution was officially registered with the Ministry of Commerce in December 1996 and the first Annual General Meeting under this will take place in August this year at the biennial national conference in Auckland.
We are committed to having a multidisciplinary association which is regionally representative. Each of the six branches nationwide will nominate a representative for the national executive and the workload will be spread amongst six subcommittees including public awareness, education of health professionals, communication, continence service development, funding and research.
While this is great in theory, funding is our ongoing challenge. Without it we cannot survive and without someone whose job it is to raise the funds we are at risk. Our short-term goal is to employ a full-time person to run the Association. We receive limited funding from a range of sources for our public awareness programme. Last year the New Zealand Lotteries Board, ASB Trust, Kimberley Clark and the Todd Foundation all contributed financially but we still experienced a shortfall. Generally these grants require reapplication on an annual basis and carry no ongoing guarantees. We are in the process of meeting with some of the "super" fund-raisers involved with organisations such as the Blind Institute, Heart Foundation and Life Education for inspiration. A proposal to companies for sponsorship at gold, silver and bronze levels has also been circulated and will be followed up by a direct personal approach.
Our annual continence awareness campaign is held in the first week in September. For the last two years and again this year we have employed Janice Zander as our Public Awareness Coordinator. This has made a major difference to the amount of media coverage we have received and also meant health professionals have received help in raising awareness in their local areas. We have also been able to identify those not being supported by their local hospitals. Last year, with funding from North Health, we produced a video "It Can Be Helped" and this was distributed nationwide to all health professional groups working with continence, just prior to Awareness Week. The feedback for this has been very positive and North Health have expressed interest in making a second video on pelvic floor exercises.
We now have a Continence Freephone helpline. Posters advertising this have been widely distributed to doctors' surgeries, plunket rooms, pharmacies, hospitals and public notice boards and the response has been huge. People calling the helpline receive appropriate information pamphlets and are given the name of a continence advisor in their region to contact. The impact of media coverage at any time during the year is reflected in the number of calls received by the helpline. The demand generally is steady but dramatically increases at these times.
Education of Health Professionals is another important focus. The policy we have adopted is to continue to hold a biennial national "state of the art" conference and every other year to hold a smaller local educational meeting in areas isolated professionally and geographically. The response to the first of these meetings in Whangarei in October 1996 was a sellout with 130 registrants which augurs well for the future. In 1997 the New Zealand Continence Association held its biennial conference in Wellington on June 27 - 29. We are fortunate to have secured the services of Wyeth NZ Ltd who run a Clinical Meeting Service and have made an ongoing commitment of assistance with our educational meetings under their clinical meeting service for postgraduate medical education. Having a professional conference organiser makes a huge difference to the workload of organising committees.
The communications subcommittee is producing 4 newsletters a year and we are hopeful of getting financial support which will allow us to improve the quality of this publication.
Of concern is the shortfall in continence services in some regions in New Zealand as well as disparity in the cost of services to patients. Some rural communities have difficulty accessing services due to distance and the cost of travel and services can disadvantage those in the lower socioeconomic groups. There are also long waiting lists in some areas. Continence advisor's positions are, in some cases, being downgraded and incorporated with other duties. Another problem is the lack of access for increasingly diverse cultural groups. We are lobbying at government level in an effort to influence these problems.
The Cochrane Group on Incontinence has three New Zealand editors, Don Wilson, Peter Herbison and Jean Hay-Smith. We see the NZCA having a role in the facilitation of consumer involvement in the review and look forward to this challenge in the future.
Our achievements are largely due to a small group of committed and otherwise busy people. Our mission statement - "The New Zealand Continence Association is a multidisciplinary body that actively facilitates continence promotion throughout NZ" - and our aims - "to promote, facilitate and advocate for all aspects of continence through public awareness, education of health professionals, accessible equitable and high quality services throughout New Zealand and research" - are our focus. We see great potential in more people from all parts of New Zealand being actively involved in our association under the new constitution and look forward to enjoying the input and potential of these people.
"Instead of seeing the rug being pulled from under us, we can learn to dance on a shifting carpet."!!!!!!! - Thomas Crum.
Jill Brown