The Health News – 17 January 2017
Overview:
• The Police believed that MDMA may be responsible for a man’s death and more than 20 hospitalisations in Melbourne’s inner south-east this weekend. Police said a 30-year-old man was arrested on Sunday morning and later charged with trafficking and possessing MDMA and possessing the proceeds of crime.
• The recent study of the Royal District Nursing Service (RDNS) Institute found that seniors who are aged 100 and above need less home visits compared to seniors with ages 95-99. According to their theories, good genetics, good eating habits, and life experience play an important role as to why they are considerably healthier compared to other age groups.
• Nurses are outraged over plans to permanently close 55 beds at Royal Adelaide and Queen Elizabeth, two major hospitals in South Australia. SA Health has disputed claims that beds are being closed, instead saying 55 would be “relocated” to the Lyell McEwin Hospital in Adelaide’s north.
News on Health Professional Radio. Today is the 17th of January 2017. Read by Rebecca Foster. Health News
Police fear a bad batch of illicit drugs is responsible for a man’s death and more than 20 hospitalisations in Melbourne’s inner south-east this weekend.
It is believed those in hospital ingested the MDMA while at nightclubs in the Chapel Street precinct at South Yarra.
Detective Senior Sergeant David Newman said people aged in their teens up to their mid-thirties started to fall ill on Friday night and a man, 30, died on Saturday after taking what police believe to have been MDMA.
“One person is in a stable condition, all of the others did require different levels of hospitalisation, and there’s also an investigation into a fatality that occurred on the Saturday morning in relation to a drug overdose,” he said.
Police said a 30-year-old man was arrested on Sunday morning and later charged with trafficking and possessing MDMA and possessing the proceeds of crime.
He has been remanded in custody to appear at the Melbourne Magistrates Court …
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-01-14/a-centenarians-secret-to-long-life-dont-worry-so-much/8180114
There are more people than ever aged 100 years of age and older in Australia, and a new study has found that as a group they need less home care than seniors who are approaching their 100th birthdays.
“They seem to go into old age much healthier,” said Colette Browning, director of the Royal District Nursing Service (RDNS) Institute.
“Even though they do have a number of chronic illnesses, they seem to be able to manage better.”
The RDNS Institute is part of RSL Care and RDNS, which supports more than 110,000 seniors in their homes and in residential aged care.
The institute analysed the health records of 123 centenarians, and more than 1,000 “near centenarians” aged 95 to 99.
It found once seniors reached 100 years of age, their required home visits actually declined to an average of 58 home visits per client over two years.
Near centenarians required an average of 72 home visits over two years.
Ms Browning has some theories. Good genetics are important, and so are good habits regarding food and drink.
But Ms Browning believes life experience also plays a role.
“We need to think about who these people are in terms of their life course,” she said.
“They were teenagers in the Great Depression. They were middle-aged during the ’60s… they seem to have a way of coping with stress, an attitude to life that’s maybe a bit more positive.”
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-01-13/dozens-of-beds-to-go-at-adelaide-hospitals-opposition/8181340
South Australian nurses are outraged over plans to permanently close 55 beds at two of Adelaide’s major public hospitals and are now considering industrial action.
The Australian Nursing and Midwifery Federation said the bed closures were part of cuts to four wards at the Royal Adelaide and Queen Elizabeth hospitals.
SA Health has disputed claims that beds are being closed, instead saying 55 would be “relocated” to the Lyell McEwin Hospital in Adelaide’s north.
Twenty-six of the beds are in Ward S7, a general medicine ward at the Royal Adelaide Hospital, which closed temporarily over Christmas.
The federation said despite assurances to the contrary, SA Health has now decided to keep the ward closed.
Chief executive of the federation’s SA branch Elizabeth Dabars said she was “shocked” and nursing staff were “absolutely distressed” there had been no consultation.
“All the evidence suggests that those wards need to remain open.
“To say that they can happily close wards S7 and … another ward at the Royal Adelaide Hospital and perhaps two at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital is completely outrageous.
“We don’t believe that they can close those wards safely.”
The federation said emergency department patients were already being treated in corridors due to a shortage of beds, and the proposed cuts would make the situation worse.
It said it would hold a meeting … to consider industrial action if the Government did not reverse its decision.
But SA Health chief executive Vickie Kaminski said the department had been consulting on the proposal since August.