Sobering-up facility not completed, emergency workers unclear about their role in new scheme – and it begins on Melbourne Cup Day
It’s been almost six years since Tanya Day hopped on a train to Melbourne but never made it to the city.
The 55-year-old Yorta Yorta woman was arrested for being drunk in public on 5 December 2017 after she fell asleep. She was placed in a police cell to sober up, suffered a head injury and later died.
Continue reading...Researcher says consumers can’t make the ‘best choices’ as rating missing on more than half of products
The government’s flagship initiative to improve Australians’ diets is “working great” as a marketing tool for food manufacturers, but is not helping people make healthier choices, new research has found.
The Health Star Rating system was introduced in 2014 as a government-led front-of-pack nutrition label designed to be a simple way to compare the overall nutritional quality of products on the shelf, as recommended by the World Health Organisation.
Continue reading...Study urges Australia to research new drugs as it warns rate of mutated infections ‘much worse than anticipated’
“Alarming” rates of babies with infections resistant to common antibiotics in the Asia-Pacific region should prompt urgent investment into new drugs for treating childhood diseases, findings from a new study suggest.
The misuse and overuse of antibiotics is driving bugs to mutate so that common drugs are no longer effective to kill them, known as antimicrobial resistance. Dr Phoebe Williams, an infectious diseases paediatrician and antimicrobial resistance researcher with the University of Sydney, said she regularly travelled to work in hospitals in the south-east Asia and Pacific region where she found “entire wards of babies that have multi-drug resistant infections, and there is nothing left to treat them with”.
Continue reading...Addenbrooke’s hospital in Cambridge failed to give William Moris-Patto a routine vitamin K injection
The parents of a baby boy who died at seven weeks old after a hospital did not give him a routine injection have described the failure as “beyond cruel”.
William Moris-Patto was born in July 2020 at Addenbrooke’s hospital in Cambridge, where it was recorded in error that he had received a vitamin K injection – which is needed for blood clotting. The shot is routinely given to newborns to prevent a deficiency that can lead to bleeding.
Continue reading...Emergency doctors say figures are aggregated with those of minor injury centres to get closer to targets
NHS bosses are using misleading figures to hide dangerously poor performance by A&E units in England against the four-hour treatment target, emergency department doctors claim.
Some A&Es treat and admit, transfer or discharge as few as one in three patients within four hours, although the NHS constitution says they should deal with 95% of arrivals within that timeframe.
Continue reading...Health bodies demand all governments immediately cease expansion of new fossil fuel infrastructure and production
Global health bodies are demanding international governments urgently phase out fossil fuels and fast-track renewable energy as health professionals increasingly see patients suffering from harm caused by climate change.
The world’s leading GP and health bodies, representing more than three million health professionals worldwide, will deliver an open letter on Saturday calling for urgent action against climate change to protect the health of communities.
Continue reading...Genetic links have been revealed between the crippling chronic condition and painful gastrointestinal disorders
After 16 rounds of surgery for endometriosis, Kate Fisher underwent a hysterectomy at age 34.
She thought it would mean an end to the debilitatingly painful periods – instead, she began shedding from her bowel each month.
Continue reading...Exclusive: Discussion on panel came as federal government was developing reforms to address high rates of youth nicotine addiction
An Australian politician spoke at the tobacco industry’s flagship conference in South Korea, despite the federal government developing reforms to address alarming rates of youth nicotine addiction.
It is the first time in more than a decade that a serving Australian politician has spoken at a tobacco industry-funded conference. Attending such events could breach a World Health Organization (WHO) treaty, to which Australia is a signatory.
Continue reading...Decision to discharge ‘low risk’ Anthony O’Donohue from mental health service in 2016 found to be ‘not satisfactory’
The firebombing death of a young bus driver “might not have occurred” if different decisions had been made about the care of the mental health patient who had been deemed “low risk” before killing him, Queensland’s state coroner has found.
Terry Ryan handed down his findings a day before the seventh anniversary of the death of Manmeet Sharma, a 29-year-old from India who had been working as a bus driver for the Brisbane city council for just three months.
Continue reading...Foreign minister flags government’s concerns about ‘volatile security situation’. This blog is now closed
Pay deal averts six-day strike by dairy workers
A looming strike at one of Victoria’s major milk companies has been averted after the processor struck a pay deal with the union.
There is some concern around Mount Isa, and we are looking at what we can do to support that area being so remote in the western part of our state.
So looking at the weather we have today, still very extreme fire danger in the western part of Queensland. We are certainly looking at another challenging day.
Continue reading...Figure is 42% higher than previous estimates and would pose ‘enormous threat’ to healthcare systems
Dementia poses an “enormous threat” to healthcare systems and the general public in England and Wales, experts have warned, as data suggests 1.7 million people will have the condition by 2040.
It is already known to be among the most serious health and social care threats and a new analysis shows the total number affected could be 42% higher than previously estimated.
Continue reading...Pre-filled injection devices claimed to hold Ozempic or Saxenda may contain other substances, regulator says
The UK medicines regulator has issued a public warning about fake and potentially harmful weight loss pens after seizing hundreds of devices sold by illegal traders.
The pens, with which the traders’ drugs are injected, are claimed to contain the medications Ozempic (semaglutide) or Saxenda (liraglutide), which are used for weight loss. However, these pens are thought to contain other substances.
Continue reading...System of identifying shortages leads to skewing of resources towards wealthier areas, according to Royal Australian College of General Practitioners
Several poor rural regions are being disadvantaged by the way the Australian government identifies significant doctor shortages, while some wealthy areas are being classified as needing extra resources.
The Royal Australian College of General Practitioners has argued that the system – which determines which regions need additional resources – is flawed and is exacerbating rural GP workforce shortages.
Doctors trained overseas are crucial to easing GP shortages across the country because for their first 10 years in Australia they must work in areas of need, known as a distribution priority area, to access Medicare benefits.
Continue reading...Michael Keating to call for revenue review at Australia Institute summit as Labor provides update on multinational tax avoidance
Australia’s taxes are “inadequate” to finance government responsibilities including for aged care and defence, a former head of the finance department has warned.
Michael Keating, the secretary of the Department of Finance from 1986 to 1991, will call for a review of revenue at the progressive thinktank the Australia Institute’s revenue summit on Friday. The call is aimed at sparking debate about methods to close the tax gap including congestion charging, lifting and broadening the goods and services tax and adjusting the stage-three income tax cuts.
Continue reading...More than a third of young adults are vaping and many of them are doing it even though they know vapes contain nicotine, Cancer Council data shows
More than one-third of young adults are using e-cigarettes, and almost three-quarters of parents suspect their child is vaping, a new study has found.
Young people can easily access vapes and availability is leading to a perception products are not harmful, according to public health experts.
Continue reading...Health regulator says serious side-effects possibly caused by insulin in counterfeit versions of Novo Nordisk’s Ozempic
Several people have been admitted to hospital in Austria after using suspected fake versions of Novo Nordisk’s diabetes drug Ozempic, the country’s health safety body has said, the first report of harm to users as a European hunt for counterfeiters widened.
The patients were reported to have suffered hypoglycaemia and seizures, serious side-effects that indicate that the product contained insulin instead of Ozempic’s active ingredient semaglutide, the health safety regulator Bundesamt für Sicherheit im Gesundheitswesen (BASG) said on Monday.
Continue reading...Suella Braverman accused by MP Stella Creasy of denying will of parliament in passing safe access law
Pro-choice MPs and activists have expressed their frustration at the government’s failure to implement a law on buffer zones around abortion clinics one year after 297 MPs voted in favour of the zones and as women face a new wave of protests when accessing reproductive care.
A Home Office spokesperson told the Observer that timelines would be confirmed “in due course” but refused to explain why the law was not yet in force and failed to confirm if a consultation on safe-access zones legislation had been launched.
Continue reading...This blog is now closed
Abbott suggests ‘scaling back’ on ‘separatism’ after no referendum vote
Former prime minister Tony Abbott has some ... opinions ... on what the defeat of the voice referendum means the country should do next. It’s fair to say they’re not uncontroversial.
Flying the Aboriginal flag co-equally (as if Australia is a country of two nations) and the routine acknowledgement of country by all speakers at official events (as if those whose ancestry here stretches beyond 1788 are more Australian than anyone else).
The Department of Justice wishes to express deepest sympathies to the boy’s family, friends and community for their tragic loss. The department is continuing its investigation into all the circumstances of the incident.
The death will be subject to a mandatory inquest and the department will fully co-operate with the coronial process.
Continue reading...Endorsement of British American Tobacco by Climate Active was revoked after complaint was made, FoI documents show
The government has been forced to revoke carbon neutral certification given to a big tobacco company after the endorsement was found to be in breach of a World Health Organization treaty to which Australia is a signatory.
Freedom of information documents show a complaint was made by the managing director of the Carbon Reduction Institute, Rob Cawthorne, to the health department in August 2022 about British American Tobacco (BAT) receiving the certification from Climate Active.
Continue reading...Study by University College London also says 5% of users are wrongly told they will develop major illness
Over the counter genetic tests in the UK that assess the risk of cancer or heart problems fail to identify 89% of those in danger of getting killer diseases, a new study has found.
Polygenic risk scores are so unreliable that they also wrongly tell one in 20 people who receive them they will develop a major illness, even though they do not go on to do so.
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