The Health News Australia September 4 2017

Overview

• Heavy rain and gusty winds have been factors beyond the control of health workers on a key moving day for Adelaide’s Royal Adelaide Hospital A fleet of ambulances is ferrying patients from the ageing hospital at the eastern end of North Terrace in Adelaide’s Central Business District to the state-of-the-art new RAH at the western end of the same CBD road.
• West Australians are losing the fight against obesity, recording their highest rate of obesity last year. The State’s annual report into the health and wellbeing of adults estimated 28.4 per cent of people aged 16 and over were obese in 2016, while the rate in men was even higher at just under 30 per cent.
• Tasmanians will have access to medicinal cannabis when the state government’s Controlled Access Scheme starting September 1 where medical specialists will be able to prescribe medical cannabis products for patients where conventional treatments have failed.
  

News on Health Professional Radio. Today is the 4th of  September 2017. Read by Tabetha Moreto. Health News

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-09-04/bad-weather-complicates-moving-day-for-adelaides-biggest-public/8870072

Heavy rain and gusty winds have been factors beyond the control of health workers on a key moving day for Adelaide’s biggest public hospital. Hundreds of Royal Adelaide Hospital patients are being sent by ambulance from the current site to the new one. A fleet of ambulances is ferrying patients from the ageing hospital at the eastern end of North Terrace in Adelaide’s Central Business District to the state-of-the-art new RAH at the western end of the same CBD road.

It is day one of three which have been allocated to complete the patient transfers, with the head of the Ambulance Service Jason Killens and South Australia Health Minister Jack Snelling keen to let reporters know how smoothly the move has been progressing. But as Mister Killens and Mister Snelling were updating the media during the morning, it became apparent the weather was one of the factors that no amount of advance planning could control. As rain calmed down, Mister Killens said everything was going to plan despite the less-than-perfect weather conditions.

You can take a three hundred sixty-degree tour of the new hospital, including commentary to explain its various features (the three hundred sixty-degree software requires iOS eight, Android version five, desktop Chrome, Safari, Firefox and Microsoft Edge browsers). Other hospitals have been taking on heavier workloads while the Royal Adelaide move has been underway, first with some equipment and then with the transfer of inpatients.

The emergency department of the new hospital will start accepting patients from seven AM on Tuesday.

http://www.perthnow.com.au/news/western-australia/wa-obesity-rates-on-the-rise/news-story/1ffb7d13c54e612a2af448b259cf19ef

West Australians are losing the fight against obesity, recording their highest rate of obesity last year. The State’s annual report into the health and wellbeing of adults estimated twenty eight point four percent of people aged sixteen and over were obese in two thousand sixteen, while the rate in men was even higher at just under thirty percent.

The Health Department assessment, based on almost six thousand adults, warned it was a significant increase on the twenty one percent obesity rate recorded in  two thousand two.
A more positive trend was the record-low number of smokers, with only ten percent of adults smoking last year, half the rate in two thousand two.

A separate report into the health of children, based on a survey of eight hundred parents, found that one in twenty children aged five to fifteen was obese, while one-quarter were overweight or obese. It also found that only thirty nine percent of children were getting enough physical activity — the second-lowest rate since exercise levels were first measured in two thousand six and markedly lower than the fifty six percent recorded in two thousand seven. Only  fifteen percent of children were eating enough vegetables, the lowest rate since two thousand five. More than one-third of parents reported that their children needed help for emotional, concentration or behavioural problems, up from twenty percent in two thousand two. One in twelve children had been professionally treated for emotional and mental health problems, the highest rate recorded.

https://www.thesenior.com.au/news/medicinal-cannabis-program-opens/

Tasmanians will have access to medicinal cannabis when the state government’s Controlled Access Scheme starts today. From September one medical specialists will be able to prescribe medical cannabis products for patients where conventional treatments have failed.
Epilepsy Tasmania chief executive Wendy Groot said the scheme would open the pathway to make new medication available. While the focus is on, but not limited to, paediatrics, Miss Groot hoped as many people as possible took advantage of the scheme.

This year the state government allocated three point seventy five million dollars to progress the scheme. Health Minister Michael Ferguson said the scheme was not restricted by age or disease, and the criteria was only a referral to a medical specialist “after a comprehensive clinical work-up”.He stressed people should discuss changes with their General Practitioner. Unlike other states, Tasmania’s Controlled Access Scheme is not limited to particular diseases. With a prescription, the government will subsidise the product for patients through hospital pharmacies across the state.