Author: healthprofessionalradio

Overview:

• The SA Government said it was slashing red tape so medicinal cannabis could be prescribed for periods of up to two months without a state sign-off being required. Only medicinal cannabis products approved by the Therapeutic Goods Administration will be covered by the change.

• The Cure for MND Foundation’s annual Big Freeze campaign, which sees footballers and celebrities slide into a big pool of icy water, raised $2.8 million towards the total amount. The money will go towards 10 research projects, including a $5-million project by the Florey Institute of Neuroscience and Mental Health which will use drugs to treat the stem cells of motor neurone patients.

• More than 700 public patients and hundreds more in the private system have had their privacy breached after letters from their specialists to GPs were found dumped in a Sydney bin. The correspondence dated from December and were meant to be sent out by a private transcription company, Global Transcription Services (GTS). Health Minister Brad Hazzard said he was “very, very unhappy” about the situation, but an initial review suggested no public patients had been put at risk by the failure to send the letters.

Overview:

• The Government has accepted all six recommendations of a review of the Oakden facility by chief psychiatrist Aaron Groves, which was sparked by the alleged overdosing of former resident Bob Spriggs. The Government announced eight staff had been stood down, 21 staff had been reported to the Australian Health Practitioner Regulation Agency, and three incidents had been referred to police.

• On Tuesday it was revealed Central Adelaide Local Health Network interim chief executive Len Richards had quit after only two months in the job. “There is a pattern of people either leaving after a very short time or being asked to leave,” the AMA’s SA president Dr Janice Fletcher said.

• The federal Health Department has warned that the number of people likely to access the National Disability Insurance Scheme for mental health services has been underestimated by about 30,000, putting the program on track for a cost blowout of nearly $1 billion. “The number of people with a primary psychosocial disability who meet NDIS eligibility criteria may be higher than the Productivity Commission estimates predict, placing cost pressures on the scheme and the commonwealth,” the Health Department submission says.

Overview:

• Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull announced the Coalition was abolishing the 457 visa system, replacing it with two new classes of visa. Speaking at the opening of the new Sunshine Coast University Hospital, Ms Palaszczuk said although she preferred locals to fill jobs, many regional health districts relied on foreign doctors

• Two months after being appointed the interim chief executive overlooking the New Royal Adelaide Hospital (NRAH), Len Richards has quit, despite the hospital’s opening being just weeks away.”We’re in the second month of the testing process for the new RAH, one of the biggest projects in Australian history, and to have another leader pass through the revolving door just adds another layer of risk to an already high-risk project,” Opposition health spokesperson Stephen Wade said.

• The Five Year Mental Health Youth Report released …[recently] by Mission Australia and Black Dog Institute found almost one in four 15 to 19 year olds “met the criteria for having a probable serious mental illness”, rising from 18.7 per cent in 2012 to 22.8 per cent in 2016. Mission Australia CEO Catherine Yeomans labelled the findings “alarming” and noted those with mental illness turned first to friends, followed by parents and the internet.

Overview:

• Australia has had a routine publicly-funded measles, mumps and rubella vaccination program for almost 50 years. It has been extremely effective. In 2014, the World Health Organisation announced that the disease was officially eliminated in Australia. While there is no longer a local strain of measles, Australia still sees the occasional case brought in from overseas, which usually leads to state health departments issuing a warning of a potential outbreak.

• The Surgical and Robotics Training Institute at Sydney’s Royal Prince Alfred (RPA) Hospital. will have the capacity to train 400 surgeons a year and offer more public patients access to these less-invasive procedures for little or no cost. A robotics surgery symposium will be held in late June where doctors will discuss having a national register for surgeons who provide robotic treatment. The meeting will also address discretionary surgeon fees for such procedures.

• A team of doctors in Britain is to become the first in the world to modify pig organs to treat newborn babies with birth defects. Professor De Coppi previously pioneered a similarly ground breaking transplant in 2010 in which a 13-year-old boy was given a new trachea that was created from a deceased human donor using the teenager’s stem cells. Before the first patient can receive a transplant, the treatment must be approved by the Medicines & Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency.

Overview:

• Almost a third of babies born extremely premature develop a chronic lung condition that can cause death and years of suffering. But a study from Monash University and the Monash Children’s Hospital has found a way to detect the condition at birth, which can help doctors better manage and treat the illness.

• The Victorian Government has revealed a $70-million plan to improve services for people with mental illnesses at risk of committing crimes, in an effort to prevent them from entering the justice system. The plan will see $40 million put towards expanding the Thomas Embling Hospital, a forensic facility where people with mental health issues who commit violent crimes are often sent instead of prison.

• Australian health authorities are warning the world faces a post-antibiotic era where simple childhood illnesses could again become deadly. In a strongly worded editorial in the Medical Journal of Australia, president of the Australasian Society for Infectious Diseases, Professor Cheryl Jones, said the woman’s death “may herald a post-antibiotic era in which high-level antimicrobial resistance (AMR) is widespread, meaning that common pathogens will be untreatable”.