Type Charity Motto By your side | Industry Nursing/Healthcare Headquarters Melbourne Founded 1885 | |
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RDNS (Royal District Nursing Service) was founded in 1885. RDNS is a not-for-profit charity in Australia which provides home nursing and healthcare to people throughout metro Melbourne, parts of regional Victoria, New South Wales, South Australia, Queensland, Tasmania, Western Australia, the North Island of New Zealand and the provinces of Otago and Southland in the South Island of New Zealand.
Contents
Fast facts
RDNS provides a range of healthcare services including:
History
The Melbourne District Nursing Society began in 1885 with a single nurse visiting the homes of the sick and poor to provide compassionate nursing care. With no other nursing service of its kind, support for the newfound form of healthcare grew. As a result, by 1892, more staff were employed to cope with demands and the organisation implemented its own midwifery service. In 1898, a meeting was held in the local town hall and it was decided to start a Collingwood branch of the Melbourne District Nursing Society.
By 1906, the organisation had extended its healthcare service to the outer suburbs of Melbourne and employed the use of bicycles to efficiently travel around the city. This form of transportation enabled district nurses to reach more clients, more quickly over a wider geographical area.
The Great War saw the onset of 1919 influenza epidemic and placed increasing pressure on the organisation to service more and more clientele. To expedite the amount of clients treated, the organisation invested in its first motor car, which would later become an integral identifier of the modern-day RDNS brand.
Following the opening of an aftercare hospital in 1926, the organisation extended its care to mothers and infants by opening Melbourne's first "Well baby clinic", which later became a motivating factor in the development of Victoria's first family planning clinic.
Like the Great War, World War II increased the demand for services and the organisation's type of clientele soon became anyone who had a genuine nursing need regardless of age, condition or circumstance. With the expanded need for services, the organisation decentralised its business by opening its first suburban centre in Camberwell.
In the 1980s, RDNS began to provide post-acute care treatments for HIV/AIDS, cystic fibrosis and other chronic treatments, care which had previously been confined to hospitals but could now be administered in the home. The HIV Program became integrated with the Victorian AIDS Council's (VAC) HIV Services in the early 1990s, and this relationship has endured for 25 years. Volunteers and paid workers through VAC provide practical assistance and social support and the RDNS nurses provide care coordination and professional nursing care for people living with HIV in the community. The RDNS HIV Program joined with the RDNS Homeless Person's Program in 2015.
Demand for RDNS’ services has continued to grow strongly year on year, with 2012 seeing the most number of visits ever provided - 1,962,179.
Service today
RDNS provides a 24-hour home nursing and homecare service to the people throughout Australia.
RDNS HomeCare and Rally HomeCare
Rally HomeCare provides community nursing and home care to older Australians, war veterans and widows, people with disabilities and others in the privacy of people’s own home.
RDNS New Zealand
RDNS NZ is a not-for-profit organisation which provides health and homecare across New Zealand.
RDNS Institute
The RDNS Institute works to promote excellence in community health through education, research and clinical practice.