$8000 for nurse asthma education from Flixotide

News Release

$8000 for nurse asthma education from Flixotide survey

Auckland 14th August 2003 – GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) has donated $8025 to Asthma New Zealand to support 12 Bachelor of Nursing students through their asthma education at UNITEC. The donation is the result of a survey carried out with 321 GP’s about Flixotide™. GSK donated $25 to Asthma New Zealand for every GP who participated in the survey.

Asthma New Zealand Executive Director Gerry Hanna expressed thanks to the GPs who gave up their time to participate in the survey and to GSK for the donation. “Nurses are integral to asthma management in New Zealand, they provide additional education and support for patients to complement the role of the GP.

“Asthma New Zealand has been involved in this popular UNITEC course for five years and have trained around 300 students. We are also involved in developing a training course for the Nursing Masters degree that will show qualified nurses how to prescribe effective asthma treatments,” said Mr Hanna.

GSK Medical Director Dr Ian Griffiths said he was pleased GSK could help nurses fund their training. “GSK is committed to supporting nurse education and already provides a separate annual scholarship of $10,000 for nursing master’s students. This donation helps to make asthma training more accessible for undergraduates and will ultimately be of benefit for the estimated 600,000 nationwide asthma patients.

“We were very pleased at the response from GP’s and grateful so many took time out to respond. The research asked GP’s about the effect of transferring existing beclomethasone patients onto Flixotide last year. The majority said they felt Flixotide was more effective than the older medicines and 86% said they preferred to prescribe CFC free inhalers1,” says Dr Griffiths.

The 12 student nurses will commence the asthma training in February 2004 as high demand for the course meant the July intake was already full.

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