Author Archives: jiarna

Ever wondered how to motivate staff to report mistakes such as medication errors or minor injuries at work?  I’ve spent time in many workplaces over the years, in agriculture, volunteering, healthcare, and education.  Each workplace has had its differences, and issues, but in every one of them I saw people hiding their errors.  Mostly thisContinue reading “Motivating staff to own up to mistakes”

Here we are again, after a three-year gap. This year I am actually writing a letter! It’s not that there was nothing to say about 2012-2014, just that by the time I got around to writing each year it was halfway into the next year. So I thought I’d just wait a bit longer andContinue reading “2015 Family Update letter”

A couple of weeks ago we had a trip to Adelaide suddenly terminated.  We hit a large cow on the Stuart Highway in the Transit van. The end of the story – the van was written off, we’re all OK, the cow is dead.I’ve seen plenty of people who have experienced a collision with aContinue reading “Cars vs Cows”

I am interested to see how different people deal with feeling angry.  Here’s some of what I’ve seen: Ignore or deny the feeling.  I know at least one person who simply does not show anger, no matter what the provocation.  It’s difficult to believe that they don’t feel angry at times, as I know theyContinue reading “Anger Management”

I thought I’d better do some preliminary planning for the Tasmania trip in December-January.  After all, the year is rushing past so fast I’m liable to miss most of it! Previous family holidays have been camper-trailer based, which gave us a great deal of freedom to go where we wanted.  Best of all, it allowedContinue reading “Organising a disabled-friendly holiday”

Some time ago, I wrote about using Bush Orders to do grocery shopping.  This is how we avoid being ripped off by price-gouging remote area stores, as we pay normal supermarket prices for our groceries in a regional centre, then pay freight to get it to our home.  This compares very favourably with prices inContinue reading “Getting value for money in remote areas”

Well, I’d better write a few lines before I start getting obituaries!!  It’s been a busy couple of months recently.Laura and I flew to Melbourne in early February to pick up a Ford Transit van with a wheelchair lifter.  This vehicle makes it much easier to move Anita about – even 6-year-old Erin can loadContinue reading “A wheelchair-accessible vehicle for our family”

A couple of weeks ago, Anita saw a rehabilitation consultant in relation to her MS.  This was instigated following an assessment for an Extended Aged Care in the Home (EACH) package.  My question at the time was, “What benefit will Anita (or anyone else) derive from this consultation?”  Apart from the obvious financial benefit toContinue reading “Weighing up the costs and benefits of treatment”

Well, I have finally got my act together and completed the 14th edition of the Wright family Christmas Letter.  I began it in 1998 as a way of updating friends and family about happenings in our family, and initially planned for it to be a 3-4 times a year newsletter.  Unfortunately, I never found theContinue reading “2011 Christmas Letter finally published”

Laura and I just got back from a long weekend drive to Sheringa in South Australia.  The event was Lynette’s 21st birthday celebration, and we have missed so many family events recently that we were determined to get to this one.Laura has her learner’s licence now, so she drove part of the way which wasContinue reading “Family Reunion”