Since 1996, the Dunham Fund was established by the late Aurora businessman and philanthropist John C. Dunham. The fund was launched to sustain individuals, non-profit or charitable groups reside in Aurora area. A medical education fund was allocated by Aurora-based Dunham Fund to boost local health care. This is an investment in nursing education and in the community as a whole. To be able to utilize the fund, the Aurora-based foundation is searching for more nursing students to complete their educations. Jodie Beverage, a single mother recently resigned from her manufacturing job to work as a nurse. With several degrees and with aid of the scholarship and other funding, Beverage is now the CI of Rush-Copley Medical Center OR.  The fund and a consortium of nine local groups had announced last week the amount of $750,000 for the scholarship program in 2 years. This will help help nurses enhance their education and use their skills in the Aurora area.

This fall, Florida State University's College of Nursing will offer a new graduate program that will pursue nurses to have doctorate degree of nursing practice (DNP) degree. The college administrators began this program with only 16 students, now the demand for the new degree continues because the class population is now 25. The $2.3 million federal grants from the Health Resources and Services Administration will assist the college to accommodate additional students.

A robot that is similar to a big cheerful teddy bear was developed by Japanese scientists. It was designed to boost hospital patients in and out of their wheelchairs or beds. The Robot for Interactive Body Assistance (RIBA) was developed by the government-run Riken research institute. It will be installed in hospitals and retirement homes in 3 years time. Dr. Toshiharu Mukai, Research Team Head, said that they have developed RIBA because to be able to help the caregivers when they are required to transfer patients into hospital beds or wheelchairs.

A policy-maker from Mindanao said that Nurses Assigned in Rural Service (NARS) Project toward organizing a larger number of jobless nurses must be built up by the congress. Emmylou Taliño-Mendoza, Cotabato Representative said that it would make a lot of sense to expand the NARS, and perhaps knock additional 10,000 nurses for employment as midwives in municipalities with the highest motherly and infant humanity rates. This means will save thousands of mothers and infants who are at risk each year because of pregnancy and birth-related complications. The lack of access to skilled delivery attendants affects the disappointingly soaring number of mothers and infants being gone during pregnancy and childbirth. According to govt. health surveys 162 mothers die out of every 10,000 births, and that 14 percent of all deaths among Filipino women may be attributed to pregnancy or to childbirth-related causes. Three out of every four maternal deaths happen to very young women 15 to 19 years old, while the infant mortality is unusually high at 24 out of every 1,000 live births. Poor mothers still give birth at home in rural areas and even in metropolitan slums, frequently there were no trained attendants.