International News

Haiti earthquake 2010

Donate to the Haiti Earthquake Appeal or call 1800 811 700.

The Australian Red Cross has launched an appeal following a devastating 7.3 magnitude earthquake 15 kms off the Haitian coast at approximately 5.00 pm local time on 12 January 2010. Local and international Red Cross personnel staff and volunteers are providing relief in the most needed areas. 

US: Strong quake hits Haiti: US geologists

20 January 2010: A [second] strong earthquake has hit Haiti, shaking buildings and sending people running into the streets. The US Geological Survey says the preliminary 6.0 magnitude quake hit at 6.03am (2203 AEDT) on Wednesday about 56km northwest of the capital of Port-au-Prince.

US: It's high time for nurses' input, poll suggests

20 January 2010: When it comes to reducing medical errors, controlling costs and just making a better healthcare system in general, the nation's "opinion leaders" want to hear from people on the front lines -- and the voices of nurses, they say, are particularly hard to hear.

US: Will Olympic athletes dope if they know it might kill them?

20 January 2010: In November, a study appeared in The New England Journal of Medicine that should give pause to many athletic dopers and those who love them. The study examined the effects of Darbepoetin Alfa, one of a class of drugs commonly known as Epo that is used to stimulate the body’s production of red blood cells.

UK: Jog your memory: brain cell secrets explored

20 January 2010: The health benefits of a regular run have long been known, but scientists have never understood the curious ability of exercise to boost brain power. Now researchers think they have the answer. Neuroscientists at Cambridge University have shown that running stimulates the brain to grow fresh grey matter and it has a big effect on mental ability.

HAITI: Babies pulled from the Haitian rubble

19 January 2010 : Nurses at Port-au-Prince's General Hospital clapped heartily as they welcomed Monday a baby girl pulled from the rubble six days after the earthquake that struck Haiti and destroyed her home.

US: Loyola accepts first students into Doctor of Nursing Practice program

19 January 2010: Ten students have been accepted to the Loyola University New Orleans School of Nursing Doctor of Nursing Practice program through the early admission process. The program, the first of its kind in the state of Louisiana, will be delivered exclusively online, pending final approval by the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools. “Every nurse is a leader there,” Titilola Adebanjo, a board-certified nurse practitioner said, echoing the school’s vision to educate professional nurses who lead change and translate science into practice in a dynamic global health care environment.

HAITI: Haitian pensioners struggles to live

19 January 2010: The Haiti earthquake has left elderly residents at a nursing home to fend for themselves. A week has passed, but there is still no large-scale food or water distribution in the area.

US: Nurse back in Indiana after surviving earthquake

19 January 2010: Sue Alexander was one of three people from St. Thomas Aquinas in West Lafayette who traveled to Haiti for a medical mission trip. "I had some supplies. I had some wound care and some powerful pain medicine and a lot of it. I stayed in the neighborhood and we went around. I took my backpack with what I had and we went around from house to house until my supplies were gone," said Alexander.

HAITI: National media focus on Haitian nursing school with Ann Arbor ties

18 January 2010: Initial news reports out of Leogane, Haiti, reveal the nursing school with Ann Arbor ties was one of few buildings to remain standing following the 7 magnitude quake Jan. 12. Eyewitnesses are reporting up to 80 percent of the town was leveled, and thousands are streaming to the school seeking medical help. They have no where else to go; it's become a refugee camp, national news media outlets are reporting.

US: Why you should fear your sofa, baby stroller and nursing pillow

18 January 2010: In 1972, California passed legislation requiring flammability standards for upholstered furniture and baby products like high chairs, strollers and nursing pillows. Manufacturers met these new standards by using inexpensive, toxic and untested flame retardant chemicals. These flame retardants contained hazardous halogenated chemicals similar to PCB's and Dioxins, two of the most toxic classes of chemicals, Untested in humans, these brominated and chlorinated flame retardants can cause cancer, birth defects, neurological and reproductive or endocrine disruption in every animal species studied.

HAITI: Haiti medics operating without anaesthetic

18 January 2010: A night ago a trainee nurse amputated her right hand without anaesthetic as there were no doctors. As they treat her wounds she is held down by her feet. It is truly awful. "We had no choice but to remove her hand," nurse Regan Ree tells me. "She would have died of septicaemia. We are seeing a lot of that. We need to carry out many amputations but her injury made it simple, others are more complicated. We need surgeons."

US: Nurses reach out to victims of Haiti earthquake

18 January 2010: The National Nurses Union’s relief arm, the Registered Nurse Response Network, is interviewing nurses who have applied to go to Haiti through the organization’s Web site. Priority at this point is being given to those who have disaster response training, speak the language of the country, and have trauma, emergency or pediatric experience, organizers say, but as the crisis continues new teams will replace those who go as part of the first wave of responders.

UK: Nursing leader praises "outstanding" dedication of nurses on visit to Afghanistan – Royal College Of Nursing

18 January 2010: Dr Peter Carter, Chief Executive & General Secretary of the Royal College of Nursing (RCN) today praised the work of nurses on the front line in Afghanistan, following his five day visit.

US: Haitian nursing student organizes mission trip

18 January 2010: A Lincoln nursing student is on a mission to do all he can to help the people in his home country. He and a group of his colleagues are going to his native Haiti to lend a hand during their spring break.

HAITI: Elderly quake survivors wait to die amid Haiti's sea of misery, with no food, water, medicine

18 January 2010: The old lady crawls in the dirt, wailing for her pills. The elderly man lies motionless as rats pick at his overflowing diaper. There is no food, water or medicine for the 85 surviving residents of the Port-au-Prince Municipal Nursing Home, just a mile (1 1/2 kilometres) from the airport where a massive international aid effort is taking shape.

UK: 40 per cent more nurses join dole queue

17 January 2010: Record numbers of nurses are being forced to sign on the dole because of a shortage of jobs. New figures show 1,225 nurses registered for benefits last month - up 40 per cent on the 875 in the previous December. Experts blame the surge on the fact most vacancies are for experienced staff - and that hospitals are hiring part-time agency workers to save money. NHS Trusts have been ordered to make cuts of £20billion in five years.

US: Nurses now need 4-year degree instead of 2, study finds

16 January 2010: More than half of the nurses in the U.S. have a two-year associate degree. But that’s not good enough anymore, given the increasing demands of modern nursing, according to a study by the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching.

US: KSU nursing school professor witnessed Haiti's earthquake, helped treat victims

16 January 2010: What Donna Martsoff wants to make clear is this: even though logistical problems have prevented Ohio aid workers from getting into the impoverished Caribbean nation these past few days, this region has still played a part in rescuing Haiti from the worst earthquake to hit it in more than 200 years. That's because Martsolf – and her colleagues at the Kent State University College of Nursing – helped create a nursing school in the Haitian town of Leogane, about 20 miles west of Port-au-Prince. The Faculty of Nursing Science of the Episcopal University of Haiti graduated it first class of nurses with bachelor's degrees in January 2009. Today, about 125 students are enrolled in the school, run by the Episcopal Diocese of Haiti.

Breast cancer treatment shows promise in trials

16 January 2010: Heating up breast tissue with microwave technology boosts the power of chemotherapy and shrinks cancerous tumors, University of Oklahoma Health Sciences Center researchers say.

HAITI: 50,000 dead in Haiti, says Red Cross

15 January 2010: The Red Cross federation says it estimates there have been 45,000-50,000 deaths in the Haitian earthquake. Spokesman Jean-Luc Martinage said the Haitian Red Cross came up with the estimate based on information from a wide network of volunteers across the quake-stricken capital of Port-au-Prince.

Donations: World Vision Australia | 13 32 40 | www.worldvision.com.au

Oxfam Australia | 1800 088 110 | www.oxfam.org.au

Medecins Sans Frontieres | 1300 13 60 61 | www.msf.org.au

UNICEF Australia  | 1300 884 233 | www.unicef.com.au

US: Post-Katrina New Orleans safety-net clinic patients report more efficient, affordable health care

15 January 2010: A new Commonwealth Fund survey of safety-net clinic patients in New Orleans finds that, despite being disproportionately low-income and uninsured, these patients had fewer problems affording care and fewer instances of medical debt and inefficient care than most U.S. adults. In fact, the report, Coming Out of Crisis: Patient Experiences In Primary Care In New Orleans, Four Years Post Katrina, finds that, among the clinic patients surveyed, only 27 percent went without needed health care because of cost, compared with 41 percent of adults across the country. According to the authors, this shows that the post-Katrina primary care pilot program—a system that relies primarily on a large network of local clinics funded by federal and local government, and given financial incentives to improve care—could serve as a national model for providing primary care to vulnerable groups.

US: Medical crisis in Haiti: Q&A with nursing faculty members

15 January 2010: The real work begins when the first responders, media and like-minded others leave. The real work comes with the rebuilding and making changes so that a better life can be had. Disaster nurses with the emphasis in their skill with working with communities, families and community/public health can help.

HAITI: Nursing School Dean Found Alive and Providing Care

15 January 2010: "It's wonderful how many nurses have asked if they can help in Haiti. At this point, however, only the most experienced relief organizations can deal with the challenges posed by a lack of water, food, lodging and transportation. Most roads that are not strewn with rubble have been impassible at night because of people sleeping or lying wounded there."

US: Get that blood flowing to protect your brain

15 January 2010: Scientists at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York have discovered that a variation of a certain gene seems to slow age-related decline in brain function.

US: Hahnemann attains Magnet status

15 January 2010: Hahnemann University Hospital [Philadelphia] announced last month that it was awarded Magnet status by the American Nurses Credentialing Center's Magnet Recognition Program. Rosemary Dunn, the senior director of nursing at Hahnemann, spearheaded the project by forming a team to begin the process of applying for Magnet status. Dunn said the process, which included a "16-volume" compilation of work and stories from Hahnemann, an application and a site visit, took about four years altogether. Hahnemann Hospital's Magnet status will be valid for four years, at which time it must undergo the application process again in order to be renewed.

UK: Healthcare assistants 'could be regulated for first time'

15 January 2010: Up to a million healthcare assistants could be forced to join a register or undergo a minimum level of training under proposals to regulate the industry for the first time.

SWEDEN: Girl's face grows back after three years

14 January 2010: A Swedish teenager has grown her face back after an allergic reaction to a single paracetamol pill caused the skin to turn black and peel off. Eva Uhlin, 19, has recovered her looks after suffering an allergic reaction to the common painkiller, bought over the counter.

US: National conference call today for nurse volunteers for Haiti relief – Nearly 3,400 RNs have signed up to go

14 January 2010: More than 3,400 registered nurses from across the U.S. have responded in less than one day to the call by the nation's largest organization of registered nurses for volunteers to provide assistance to residents of earthquake devastated Haiti —leading the RNs to now issue an urgent appeal for the public to support these efforts with donations of funds to support travel costs and medical supplies on their upcoming emergency nursing mission.

SWEDEN: Miraculous recovery of teenager who grew back her face after suffering 'one-in-a-million' allergic reaction to paracetamol

12 January 2010: A teenager has grown back her entire face after being struck down by a rare skin disease. Eva Uhlin, 19, suffered a bizarre one-in-a-million allergic reaction to household paracetamol that left her unrecognisable. The potentially fatal condition -–Toxic Epidermal Necrolysis – gripped her entire body, causing her skin to burn up and scab over before falling off.

Local News

WEEK COMMENCING 16 JANUARY 2010

AMA's war cry a game of politics: Lucas

21 January 2010: The Bligh Government has accused the state's peak medical body of playing politics over its self-declared "war on waste" in the health system. The Australian Medical Association's Queensland branch is today launching a campaign to name and shame areas of "diabolical" waste, including a bloated health bureaucracy.

It's time we listened to the doctors

21 January 2010: Over the past 18 months I have spent an inordinate amount of time in public hospitals in NSW, not as a patient but as a witness to the ordeals of family members.Two things were notable: first, the professionalism, expertise and good humour of most doctors and nurses; and second, the extent to which they must work around a government bureaucracy of Soviet-style ineptitude.

Modbury Hospital bleeding internally: AMA

21 January 2010: The State Government’s downgrading of Modbury Hospital is to blame for staff shortages, the Australian Medical Association (AMA) says. The government announced last week doctors from private agency Aspen Medical will be hired to cover staffing shortages at Modbury’s Emergency Department (ED).

Medicos wage war on waste

21 January 2010: Australia's peak medical group will demand Queensland Health stop hiring bureaucrats as part of a new name and shame campaign targeting the hundreds of millions of dollars it claims are being wasted in hospitals.

John Hunter retains role in child health shake-up

20 January 2010: John Hunter Children's Hospital will remain the state's only locally managed children's hospital as part of a shake-up of the child health care services. The State Government announced yesterday a plan to establish a specialist child health branch to be known as NSW Kids.

Fed Gvt: Building the GP Plus Super Clinic Network

20 January 2010: The Prime Minister, Federal Minister for Health and the South Australian Minister for Health today announced the appointment of the construction firms who will build the $25 million Modbury GP Plus Super Clinic and Noarlunga GP Super Clinic. Work will soon commence, with the first stage of the Noarlunga clinic complete in September of this year, and the first stage of the Modbury clinic finished the following month.

ACT Calvary sale plan needs Vatican approval

20 January 2010: The ACT Government says it will not appropriate the funds it needs to buy Calvary Public Hospital until the sale is approved by the Vatican, as the Little Company of Mary Health Care needs Rome's endorsement to proceed.

Ballarat backs cancer centre

20 January 2010: A proposed cancer centre has received overwhelming support from the Ballarat community. Earlier this month, Federal MHR Catherine King told The Courier a funding application had been submitted to the government to build a $55 million state-of-the-art cancer centre in Ballarat.

Child protection system hasn't improved: CLP

20 January 2010: The child protection system has not changed since failings in the Alice Springs and Darwin offices contributed to the deaths of two children, the Northern Territory Opposition says. The coroner yesterday found the system was "under-resourced" and "dysfunctional" and had contributed to the deaths of an Alice Springs baby in 2005 and a 12-year-old girl in Palmerston in 2007.

Rudd commits $21m for Tasmanian health

20 January 2010: Prime Minister Kevin Rudd has committed more than $21 million in new funding for Tasmania's struggling health system. Mr Rudd says the funding includes $16.6 million over four years for the state's emergency departments, ambulance and mental health services.

Elderly patients 'stuck' in hospitals

20 January 2010: More than 70 older patients are stuck in hospital as they have nowhere to go. This equates to up to seven wards full of people taking up beds. SA Health statistics show last September 86 older people were in metropolitan hospitals waiting to go elsewhere. Overall there was an average of 74 in the year.

Shake-up to merge children's hospitals

20 January 2010: The state's two biggest children's hospitals are expected to merge within six months in a sweeping shake-up of health services that could end more than a decade of fierce rivalry over funding, resources and recognition. The proposal, announced yesterday by the Premier, Kristina Keneally, and the Health Minister, Carmel Tebbutt, will join the Children's Hospital at Westmead and Sydney Children's Hospital at Randwick under one administrative umbrella, almost 15 years after they started competing for funding.

Remote doctor group cautious about changes

20 January 2010: A group which places overseas-trained doctors in remote Northern Territory communities says any changes to the current program need to be done carefully. The Australian Medical Association and Rural Doctor's Association of Australia says the program where foreign doctors are forced to work in rural areas should be changed.

Austin Hospital scores 90 new doctors

20 January 2010: It was a flurry of feet, papers and corridors of excited hushed whispers as 90 young doctors joined the Austin Hospital last week. Fresh from medical school, they were part of the 557-strong group of interns to enter the public hospital system across Victoria this year, and the largest intake the Austin and Northern Health have ever received into their joint training program.

Health ID cover-up for some exposes risks

20 January 2010: The same people who claim a new national health identity system will be safe from fraud will be able to get fake ID to keep their own records secret. While every Australian will soon be assigned a 16-digit health ID number, politicians and other "well-known personalities" will be able to take advantage of false identities to stop their records falling into the wrong hands.

Nurse-led clinic 'could harm patients'

20 January 2010: The Australian Medical Association (AMA) has criticised the ACT Government's decision to allow a private nurse-led clinic to operate out of a pharmacy in Canberra's south. The clinic in Tuggeranong will employ five nurse practitioners who will have the power to prescribe medication and make diagnoses.

Haikerwal backs e-health confidentiality

20 January 2010: Dr Mukesh Haikerwal has spoken out in support of the federal government’s proposed electronic healthcare identifier system, saying it will provide greater safeguards to health consumers.

The prominent Melbourne GP and former Australian Medical Association (AMA) president said the new system would promote confidentiality between doctors and patients.

Nambour patients wait in cupboards

20 January 2010: Utility rooms and other similar storage spaces are being converted into makeshift wards at Nambour hospital as overcrowding reaches critical intensity. North Buderim woman Annette Thompson, 49, was allocated a bed in a “staff only clean utility room” at 9.40am on Monday.

AMA push for hospital funds shift

20 January 2010: Pressure is mounting for Prime Minister Kevin Rudd to bite the bullet and take control of funding for public hospitals from the states. As the Federal Government debates the scale of reforms that will form the centrepiece of its pitch for a second term, doctors intensified their push for a federal funding takeover.

Rural doctor warning

19 January 2010: The peak body which promotes the recruitment of rural GPs says many remote areas would go without if the federal government changed the rules affecting overseas-trained doctors. Dr Kim Webber, chief executive of Rural Health Workforce Australia, said the rule was vital to staffing the nation's regional and remote areas and it could not be dropped.

Federal Rural and Regional Health Minister visits Bendigo and Kyneton

19 January 2010: The Rudd Government is investing a total of $437,053 in the Bendigo Base Hospital under Stage Two of the Elective Surgery Waiting List Reduction Plan, allowing the hospital to purchase additional surgical equipment to reduce waiting times for elective surgery.

Budget must provide 'stimulus package' for health – Australian Medical Association

19 January 2010: AMA President, Dr Andrew Pesce, said today that the May Federal Budget must provide a significant 'stimulus package' for the Australian health system.

Privacy concerns persist on national e-health plan

19 January 2010: The Rudd government has failed to calm fears over patient privacy and data security risks related to its proposed Healthcare Identifiers regime, with consumer and industry groups warning the draft Bill is flawed.

AMA ends support for bush doctor rule

19 January 2010: Pressure is mounting on the Federal Government to end its requirement for doctors trained overseas to work for 10 years in rural or regional Australia before they can move to the city.

E-health to boost patient safety: Roxon

19 January 2010: The federal government says its proposed e-health system will improve patient safety and free up GPs. The system, currently under design, will see patient records stored in one national database that can be accessed by different health professionals.

Prolonged immigration detention puts detainees at higher risk of mental illness

18 January 2010: Asylum seekers and other detainees who are held in Australian immigration detention centres for long periods of time are more likely to require medical attention for mental health problems than those detained for a shorter time, according to the results of research published in the Medical Journal of Australia.

Treatment of symptoms in children dying of cancer is inadequate, Australia

18 January 2010: Greater attention to palliative care for children with cancer is needed to prevent them from suffering unresolved symptoms at the end of life, according to the authors of a study published in the Medical Journal of Australia.

AMA urges greater support for international medical graduates (IMGs), Australia

18 January 2010: The AMA has written to Health Minister Nicola Roxon urging greater support for international medical graduates (IMGs) working in Australia, highlighting the problems they face in accessing basic community services such as Medicare and public education.

Roxon: E Health to deliver a better, more efficient system

18 January 2010: Patient care will be improved and inefficiency in the health system will be cut by new e-health legislation soon to be introduced by the Rudd Government.

Health sector to help cover e-health costs

18 January 2010: Federal Health Minister Nicola Roxon says health professionals will be expected to help bear the cost of moving to an e-health system.

SA study finds home births more risky

18 January 2010: Debate over the safety of home births has been re-ignited by a report that's found babies born at home are more at risk of dying from complications than those delivered at maternity units in hospital. The Australian Medical Association says it's further evidence about the dangers of home births. But advocates of the practice say the report by South Australia's Flinders University is flawed and they're accusing the AMA of scaremongering.

Homebirth enhances risk of death by 7 times

18 January 2010: Delivery at home enhances the chances of death of the baby by as much as 7 times, suggests the findings of a new study.

Binge drinking ads send sobering message

January 2010: A Government campaign to curb binge drinking among young people has hit the mark according to Minister for Health, Nicola Roxon. Ms Roxon said new research revealed that the Don’t Turn a Night Out into a Nightmare advertisements, running on television and in night clubs, continued to remind people to drink responsibly during the festive season.

We must end the silence surrounding the risks of health care

19 January 2010: For all the extraordinary advances in medical science and technology, getting sick (or injured) is a safety issue. Worldwide, health-care errors cost an incredible 10,000 disabilities and deaths every day. Today's patients have only a one in two chance of receiving recommended care, a 1:10 likelihood of something going wrong in hospital and a 1:50 possibility of a health system-induced death or major disability. And that's in the world's best resourced health systems, such as US and Australian hospitals.

Abbott's pregnancy hotline reborn as parents' helpline

18 January 2010: Federal Health Minister Nicola Roxon, who in opposition questioned whether Mr Abbott was allowing his Catholic faith to interfere with his decisions on women's fertility, said the [anti-abortion] hotline would be replaced with a new perinatal helpline offering a broader range of information, advice and referral services, not just for pregnant women but new parents and their families. She said the new helpline would start on July 1, when the existing hotline would cease, as part of a $120.5m maternity package announced in the budget.

Home births multiply death risk by seven

18 January 2010: Babies are seven times more likely to die during home births. That is the finding of a study conducted by Marc Keirse of Flinders University and his co-authors, who examined data on almost 300,000 births in South Australia between 1991 and 2006. Babies born at home were also 27 times more likely to suffer asphyxiation during labour, according to the study published today in the Medical Journal of Australia.

Too few places for new doctors

17 January 2010: One in three doctors who graduate in two years may be forced to abandon medicine due to a shortage of intern places at NSW's public hospitals.

Playing the blame game does us a fat lot of good

17 January 2010: Stop whingeing and start moving, fatso! Obesity is not a disease, it's just laziness. Or so the argument goes. It's a simplistic solution to what has become one of the most complex public health dilemmas of our time.

Weight loss drug warning

17 January 2010: Ever since, the Therapeutic Goods Administration (TGA) placed a restriction on doctors prescribing Reductil, a popular weight loss drug, the Australian Medical Association has been concerned some patients may attempt to purchase the drug, which a clinical trial has found to be potentially fatal for patients with heart disease or hyper-tension, online.

Weight loss pill 'could be fatal''

17 January 2010: Doctors have been ordered to stop prescribing Australia's most popular weight-loss drug to the overweight after a two-year clinical trial found it could be potentially fatal. The decision by the Therapeutic Goods Administration (TGA), quietly circulated to doctors on Christmas Eve, has driven women desperate to obtain the drug sibutramine, marketed as Reductil, to the internet to get around the ban.

Govt urged to tighten homebirth laws

17 January 2010: The federal government has been urged to push on with its plans to tighten homebirth laws, after a new study found the practice to be more risky than conventional hospital deliveries. A comparison of South Australian births between 1991 and 2006 found the perinatal mortality rates of homebirth and hospital births to be similar.

Doctors claim Reductil as fatal to heart patients

17 January 2010: The Australian Medical Association has shown its concerns over the issue that some patients may attempt to get a popular weight loss drug over the internet even after restrictions were placed on the product in Australia.

Doctors warn against weight loss drug

17 January 2009: The Australian Medical Association is concerned some patients may attempt to get a popular weight loss drug over the internet after restrictions were placed on the product in Australia.

Swine flu looms with the return to school

16 January 2010: Health experts are warning that Australians can expect a second wave of swine flu, possibly as early as the beginning of the school year just a fortnight away.

That Homebirth Study in South Australia

16 January 2010: Planned home and hospital births in South Australia, 1991-2006: differences in outcomes: Robyn Kennare, Marc Keirse, Graeme Tucker and Annabelle Chan, MJA 192(2), 18 January 2009. You’re going to be hearing a lot from the Australian Medical Association about That Homebirth Study In South Australia, so here are a few actual facts to be getting along with in the meantime. Note that the Medical Journal of Australia is the journal of the AMA, not an independent publication.

Mental health care 'a bad joke'

16 January 2010: The ACT Government is investigating the adequacy of the territory's mental health services after a whistle-blower labelled the system ''an unmitigated disaster area''.

Doctor numbers rise in WA

16 January 2010: The number of doctors graduating in Western Australia is increasing, and many of them expect to work in parts of the state where there are severe shortages.

Saving boozed babies

16 January 2010: A study showing alcohol consumption can permanently change genes in developing fetuses may be the first step to developing a diagnosis for fetal alcohol syndrome, researchers say.

SA-based national health agency under fire

15 January 2010: A key Federal Government health initiative to be based in Adelaide has been dismissed as a rushed-through, bureaucratic agency which will not address the country’s health crisis. The $1.5 billion Health Workforce Australia (HWA) will officially open its doors in Adelaide on January 27, more than eight months later than originally planned.

Unhealthy diet could fuel depression in women

15 January 2010: Women who suffer from depression and anxiety may want to take a look at their diet as a possible contributor to these conditions, study findings suggest. Researchers from the University of Melbourne found that mood disorders were more common among women aged 20 to 93 who, over 10 years, ate primarily processed, refined, high-fat foods.

Eli's timing perfect as his parents count blessings

15 January 2010: The National Association of Specialist Obstetricians and Gynaecologists estimates that, on average, pregnant women expecting to deliver their babies after May 20 will be almost $1000 worse off.

Vitamin D may reduce nursing home falls

15 January 2010: Falls, a leading cause of death and disability in the elderly, may be reduced by vitamin D supplementation in nursing homes, Australian researchers say.

Beach jargon can be lifesaver in hospitals, too

14 January 2010: It is a no-brainer, the Health Department concedes, but it took the unnecessary death of a teenager at Royal North Shore Hospital for it to develop a statewide system of monitoring vital signs to detect deteriorating patients. The Health Minister, Carmel Tebbutt, launched a standardised observation chart with a colour-coded warning system yesterday; it will be implemented at all NSW hospitals this year.

Elliott: Respite for Australian carers – More than $4 million in grants

14 January 2010: Minister for Ageing Justine Elliot today announced more than $4 million in one-off funding grants for 269 services across Australia that provide respite for carers.

Elliott: New equipment to help reduce elective surgery waiting times in Tamworth

14 January 2010: Minister for Ageing, Justine Elliot, today visited Tamworth Hospital which has recently benefited from new up-to-date surgical equipment worth more than $338,000. The equipment funding was provided from the Rudd Government’s Elective Surgery Waiting List Reduction Plan.

Remedy Healthcare and health reform

14 January 2010: (This speech was presented by John Meckiff at the GAP/ACHR Congress on Australia’s Health on Monday 30 November 2009.) In order to give you some context, Remedy Healthcare is a disease management business which delivers telephone based self management and home based allied health services to patients diagnosed with chronic disease. Remedy operates in an environment directly impacted by the recommendations of the National Health & Hospitals Reform Commission (NHHRC) final report.

The year that was

January 2010: From winning prescribing rights and having them taken away again to pandemics and natural disasters, 2009 has been quite a year for the nursing profession. With health a continuing priority and ever-changing, the industry was again a daily feature in headlines across the country. But what will nurses and midwives remember 2009 for? For many it will be the year that the profession was given its due recognition, said Debra Cerasa, RCNA CEO.

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