Prison Health Services

Since 2007, third year Bachelor of Nursing students at Griffith University have completed placements in Prisons Health Services after completing an expression of interest and an enrolment procedure.

Griffith University’s top-ranking School of Nursing and Midwifery was the first tertiary nursing education provider in the state to offer students clinical placements at Prison Health Services, which is a part of West Moreton HHS, Queensland Health.

To adequately prepare students for the complex work environment, Griffith’s School of Nursing and Midwifery developed a specialised enrolment procedure and related materials in partnership with Prison Health Services. Materials include a scripted short film featuring actors depicting likely scenarios and interactions with prisons that play out in a way that demonstrates best practice.

In a prison environment, a nurse’s role is different to that of any other specialty, due to its broad scope – Nurse Educator Laura Bechaz from Prison Health Services explained that the service deliver a CSCF level 1 and describes it as a General Practice Clinic, Acute Care Service and Emergency Department rolled up in one. Nursing staff in prisons triage, perform extended scope procedures such as suturing, ear irrigation and X-rays. Core duties are managing large quantities of medications and promoting health and health literacy. Often the Prison Health Nurse is the first every interaction with a Health Practitioner for the incarcerated person.

On placement, the nursing students shadow a Clinical Nurse Consultant or a Nurse Practitioner across the seven different Prison Health facilities located in South East Queensland. Despite the at times challenging conditions, students that complete the placement with Prison Health Services often come away from the experience with a desire to pursue the specialty after graduation and several Griffith students have successfully secured permanent positions.

The partnership has been stewarded by Dr Judith Needham since its inception in 2007 when a Bachelor of Nursing student expressed interest in prisons for their placement, inspired by their parent who was a warden. Dr Needham recognised this potential new graduate employment opportunity and set out to establish the relationship, which has grown to just shy of 350 (and counting) nursing students having completed the placement. As the number of undergraduate students pursuing placements at Prison Health Services has grown, postgraduate students and PhD candidates also increasingly look to this specialty. Dr Needham and Professor Thea van de Mortel sees the value in the placement in that it takes students out of their comfort zone and opens their eyes to a career path most hadn’t considered.