Warning comes on eve of England’s 61,000 junior doctors beginning four-day action
Junior doctors may keep striking for another year in their bitter pay dispute with the government, despite NHS leaders’ growing alarm about how the industrial action is disrupting patient care.
Trainee medics in England could even hold a week-long stoppage to escalate their campaign of industrial action to secure a 35% pay rise from the health secretary, Steve Barclay.
Continue reading...Justice department calls decision ‘especially unwarranted’ because it undermines the FDA’s scientific judgment
The US government on Monday appealed a Texas judge’s decision to suspend the Food and Drug Administration’s 23-year-old approval of a key abortion drug, saying the ruling endangered women’s health by blocking access to a pill long deemed safe.
In a filing with the 5th US circuit court of appeals, the Department of Justice (DoJ) called judge Matthew Kacsmaryk’s decision on the drug mifepristone “especially unwarranted” because it would undermine the FDA’s scientific judgment and harm women for whom the drug is medically necessary.
Continue reading...Callers wait so long that nearly one in five hang up, finds Liberal Democrat commissioned analysis
Patients contacting NHS 111 in England are having to wait so long for medical help that they are abandoning millions of calls, with 3.6m ditched in the past 12 months, official figures reveal.
The national helpline service is supposed to make it quicker and easier for patients to get the right advice or treatment they need, either for their physical or mental health. It is billed as being open 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
Continue reading...Gatherings over Easter long weekend expected to cause further increase in infections, with Victoria already 60% up in past fortnight
Covid-19 cases are expected to rise further across Australia after family gatherings over the Easter long weekend, amid warnings of increasing pressure on hospital staff and a possible new wave of infections.
Most states and territories have recorded consistent increases in cases over the past two months, with Victoria recording a 60% jump in cases in the last fortnight. On Friday the state reported 5,772 new cases over the previous seven-day period.
Continue reading...Underfunded services resulting in more women choosing cheaper at-home abortion pill, study finds
Overstretched and underfunded abortion services in England and Wales are leaving women feeling pressured into opting for the cheaper at-home pill rather than a surgical procedure, according to research.
The proportion of medical abortions – using pills – rose from 47% in 2011 to 87% in 2021, while very few abortions are now administered surgically, finds research from the London School of Economics.
Continue reading...Consultants who refuse to do extra work threatened with having their pay docked as NHS trusts race to empty their wards
Hospital trusts are taking desperate measures to limit the predicted loss of life from this week’s NHS strikes – including threatening consultants who refuse to do extra work, and tempting junior doctors to cross picket lines by increasing locum pay – as fears grows that many wards could be left without medical cover.
NHS leaders and senior clinicians fear the four-day walkout by junior doctors – starting at 6.59am on Tuesday and continuing until 6.59am on Saturday – will lead to the cancellation of hundreds of thousands of operations and appointments, while putting seriously ill patients at greater risk.
Continue reading...Party members call on Biden to do more to protect reproductive rights amid conflicting judicial rulings on mifepristone
Democrats angrily denounced as “dangerous” and “draconian” a decision by a Texas judge that threatens access to a widely used abortion medication, while demanding the Joe Biden White House do more to protect reproductive rights.
Nearly a quarter-century after the Food and Drug Administration approved the abortion pill mifepristone, the federal judge Matthew Kacsmaryk on Friday sought to invalidate the agency’s decision, handing down an unprecedented order that – if upheld – would severely restrict access to one of the most commonly used methods of terminating a pregnancy.
Continue reading...Researcher say making scan at 36-37 weeks routine may also cut risk of severe complications for babies
Giving women a third scan at the end of their pregnancy could dramatically reduce the number of unexpected breech births and the risk of babies being born with severe health problems, research suggests.
Pregnant women in the UK have routine scans at 12 and 20 weeks only, with no further scan offered in the third trimester unless they are considered at risk of a complicated pregnancy. The researchers hope their findings could lead to a change in guidance for clinicians that will improve maternity care.
Continue reading...Eligible children between six months and four years old will be offered jab from June
Children aged between six months and four years old who are deemed clinically vulnerable will be offered two doses of a Covid vaccine, public health bodies in the UK have announced.
The move, revealed by the UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) after approval by the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI), comes after the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine was approved for children of this age by the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) in December. Children who are not clinically vulnerable are not included in the UK-wide offer.
Continue reading...Exclusive: leading heart surgeons urge BMA to exempt staff working on critical care units in England
Critically ill patients “will inevitably die” because hospitals are having to cancel surgery as a direct result of next week’s junior doctors’ strike in England, leading heart surgeons have warned.
There were bound to be fatalities among people with serious heart problems whose precarious health meant they were “a ticking timebomb” and needed surgery as soon as possible, they said.
Continue reading...Swedish police pressing ahead with removal of Kathleen Poole, 74, due to incomplete post-Brexit paperwork
The family of a woman with Alzheimer’s who is threatened with deportation from Sweden have vowed to do anything they can to stop her removal because of a promise they made to their children.
Kathleen Poole, 74, is facing forced removal from Sweden, her home for 18 years, after immigration authorities rejected an application by her family to stay in the country post-Brexit on the grounds her paperwork was incomplete.
Continue reading...Government-commissioned report argues structural reform is essential and requires a simpler, clearer billing system
Medicare fraud and non-compliance by doctors is costing taxpayers between $1.5bn and $3bn a year, a conservative estimate that will only increase without system reforms, according to a government-commissioned independent review.
The review into Medicare compliance, led by health economist Dr Pradeep Philip, was commissioned following ongoing concerns about waste and wrongful billing practices.
Sign up for Guardian Australia’s free morning and afternoon email newsletters for your daily news roundup
Continue reading...Losing more nurses from workforce already facing shortages and burnout could reduce quality of patient care, union organiser says
Thousands of New Zealand nurses are registering to work in Australia in pursuit of better pay and conditions, amid staffing shortages and industrial action in their home country.
Almost 5,000 New Zealand nurses have registered to practise in Australia since August, a spokesperson from the Australian Health Practitioner Regulation Agency (Ahpra) and the Nursing and Midwifery Board of Australia confirmed on Tuesday. While not every nurse who registers will make the move, they make up about 8% of the approximately 65,000 nurses registered in New Zealand.
Continue reading...Abortion legislation needs to move through house before gaining DeSantis’s likely signature while gun-carry law enacted today
Florida took another step to the right on Monday when the state senate approved a bill to ban abortions after six weeks, a measure supported by Republican governor and expected presidential candidate Ron DeSantis – who on the same day signed into law a bill allowing the public to carry concealed guns without a permit.
The latest proposal to restrict reproductive rights must still be approved by the house in the state legislature before it reaches the governor’s desk. Florida currently prohibits abortions after 15 weeks.
Continue reading...Control of state’s supreme court will ultimately decide fate of 1849 abortion ban that was revived in June, after Roe was overturned
One weekend in late March, McKenzie Schroeder offered to drive her friend across the Wisconsin border into Illinois to get an abortion. Abortion has been illegal in Wisconsin since June, when the US supreme court overturned Roe v Wade, reviving the state’s 1849 near-total abortion ban.
“If you’ve never been in that situation, you can never understand how a woman feels if they’re pregnant and don’t know what to do,” said Schroeder, 30, who lives in Sun Prairie and works for a property management company and as a waitress. “I don’t think that any human being on the face of the earth should control what I do with my body.”
Continue reading...Report finds that 72 cases of the disease on the vessel, which was housing asylum seekers, were caused by a wastewater leak
A major outbreak of typhoid among asylum seekers living on a ship in the Netherlands has been traced to raw sewage which was allowed to mix with tanks of freshwater for drinking and cooking.
A total of 72 cases of the highly contagious disease were confirmed during the spring 2022 outbreak on the Liberty Ann, an old cruise ship which was being used as emergency accommodation in Haarlem.
Continue reading...Labor’s Mary Doyle has two-party preferred swing of at least 6% in the count on Saturday evening. This blog is now closed
Dutton says Labor’s road funding cuts in Aston ‘a disaster’
Out of hiding and into the open, opposition leader Peter Dutton has been seen on the campaign trail in Aston today.
[Labor] haven’t explained to the people of Aston why it is that they cut road funding as the first act in government, and it’s quite remarkable.
It’s a disaster for locals and people realise that the first act of the Albanese government was to cut road funding here in Aston … They’ve never apologised for it, they never explained why.
There are a lot of Australian families who have heard Anthony Albanese promise before the last election on 97 occasions that he would reduce your power to $275. That was a promise he made before the election, he’s never mentioned it since, not once.
So cost of living pressures are real for families and the opportunity in the election today is to send a very clear message to Labor that they shouldn’t be cutting local road funding, and they shouldn’t be abandoning this community.
Continue reading...The 7.30 political correspondent will sit on the broadcaster’s board alongside chair Ita Buttrose. This blog is now closed
Report of new gas tax for Australia
The Australian Financial Review is this morning reporting that a new gas tax looms as the government tries to raise revenue to begin budget repair.
Major companies such as Woodside Energy, Santos and Shell and their tax advisers have signed confidentiality agreements with Treasury on the PRRT consultation.
Since Treasury resumed the stalled work for Labor late last year, it has cast the net wider to probe other PRRT areas, such as deductions, in an attempt to raise revenue sooner for the government from the profits-based tax.
Continue reading...Department of Health and Social Care in England has removed 269,500 pallets of PPE from its stock
The government has disposed of more than 3bn items of personal protective equipment (PPE) it bought during the pandemic, figures have revealed.
An estimated 3.14bn items have been shed through a mixture of recycling, energy from waste processes – including some incineration – donations and sales.
Continue reading...Possible byelection looms for Rutherglen and Hamilton West after MP travelled back to Scotland on train after positive test in 2020
The MP for Rutherglen and Hamilton West Margaret Ferrier should be suspended from the House of Commons for 30 days for breaching Covid rules, the committee on standards has recommended.
Ferrier could face a byelection as the Commons watchdog recommended she should be suspended for 30 days for breaching Covid rules. She was found to have damaged the reputation of the Commons and put people at risk after taking part in a debate and travelling by train while suffering from Covid.
Continue reading...