Following the ANZCoS meeting in Melbourne 2006 when the Nurses meeting indicated such a strong support for the formation of one strong spinal nursing group and for that group to come under the umbrella of Australasian Rehabilitation Nurses Assn (ARNA) there has been a lot of time and energy involved in making this a reality. The Spinal Injury Nurses Association Inc, (SINA) set up initially by John Hebblewhite was the model preferred by the nurses at that meeting for a variety of reasons, in particular as SINA was already an incorporated organisation in its own right with all the benefits and security that provided. SINA also had an organised committee and was holding annual conferences for Spianl Nurses. The content and professionalism of the papers presented at the 2006 conference was excellent, and the cost of the conference to the Nurses was much lower than other conferences. SINA was complemented on providing a 'no frills' conference and dinner with excellent, professional papers of use to nurses in their daily practice.

The initial thought was that SINA, as an organisation, would affiliate with ARNA with mutual benefits to both organisations. SINA would have a larger contact member group and ARNA would have the benefits of the expertise of highly skilled spinal nurses. Several of the members of SINA were already ARNA members. Although this sounded good initially when we came to the reality nothing much changed. We would still be operating on separate constitutions with similar but separate rules. ARNA has an up to date constitution, credibility internationally and is an active member of CoNNO. The comparative small numbers of SINA members meant that we did not have the power to have a voice in the larger picture of Nursing in Australasia although we did have the skill base. As a fairly small specialty it is unlikely that SINA would ever develop the necessary numbers. To get true representation through ARNA, SINA members would have had to join both organisations. SINA, although constituted needed a lot of work done on the constitution to bring it up to an acceptable level. ARNA although more expensive than SINA has Admin support which, in these days of nurses workloads becoming unmanageable, and most experienced nurses already doing a lot of their preparation and book work at home, is a very useful resource.

An application was made to ARNA by SINA on 5th June 2007 for affiliation but when we looked at the realities of that relationship that was withdrawn. The option of the Spinal Nurses just joining ARNA as regular members was considered but would have meant that the specialist group became dispersed throughout the geographical chapters and maintaining contact would have been cumbersome and difficult. The Spinal Nurses group as a separate entity could easily have been lost. We then ended up with two problems – changing the structure and constitution of ARNA to facilitate specialist nursing chapters, then, when that was passed applying for the formation of a Spinal Injuries Nursing Chapter.

After discussions with the ARNA National Committee Executive a proposal was put to the ARNA National Committee planning day on 3rd December 2007 outlining the proposal and constitutional changes required. The ARNA National Committee accepted this on that day and a special general meeting was scheduled for 14th January 2008. As always when there are changes proposed to an established organisation there were some members who were not sure this was being done the best way. The motion to allow the constitutional changes to form specialist nursing groups within the structure was passed by a large majority on 14th January 2008.

A submission was then made to the National Committee to allow for the formation of a Specialist Nurses Chapter. Again there were a few people who were uncertain that this had been thought out well enough, however on Monday 3rd March 2008 the Spinal Injuries Nurses Chapter of ARNA ( ARNA SINC) became a reality. It is an enormous step forward that there is now one sustainable base for Spinal Nurses. There are still some little glitches to be ironed out with the process and we will continue to work on those, meanwhile Spinal Nurses have a secure future within ARNA SINC.

A big thank you goes to the ARNA National committee and particularly to Pam Hesketh, Erika Schlemmer, Wendy Jannings and Jenny Batten from the new ARNA SINC - thank you for all the help and encouragement.

The 2007-2008 ARNA Spinal Nurses Chapter Committee