Author: healthprofessionalradio

Overview:
•  The University of Sydney is about to undertake the study to measure exactly what treatment services are available to affected communities across NSW regarding the ear health of Indigenous people. Professor Michelle Lincoln said the study by the university’s Poche Centre would go along way to addressing those gaps and where much-needed services should be delivered.

• Federal Health Minister Sussan Ley said that  the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme had now been broadened to include women who were also at a moderate to high risk of getting breast cancer so that more Australian women will have access Tamoxifen, a preventative breast cancer drug

• The “Nature Play” event at Logan, south of Brisbane, included mud soccer, mud tug-of-war, and even a mud pie bakery. Its organisers are trying to combat plummeting rates of outdoor play. Nature Play Queensland organiser Hyahno Moser said the rise of technology, time constraints, and aversion to risk as factors.

Overview:
•  A University of New South Wales Kirby Institute report shows about 230,000 people were living with hepatitis C across in Australia last year, but only one in five received treatment. An oral anti-viral treatment, with a cure rate over 90 per cent, was listed on the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme (PBS) in March, and more than 26,000 people have accessed help since.

• Researchers from the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare (AIHW) compiled a report into smoking patterns, finding less than 13 per cent of Australians are daily smokers. Overall, the report found improvement in a majority of indicators used to measure smoking rates under a strategy to reduce tobacco usage.

• An international study, led by University of Queensland researchers, identified 60 genetic variants associated with birth weight, 53 of which were not previously known. The study, published in Nature journal, revealed the genetic regions linked to low birth weight overlapped with those connected to an individual’s chance of developing type 2 diabetes and heart disease.

Overview:
•  Brenden Wilkins, owner of Core Strength Fitness, and Troy Leviston from Plumbers Queensland are behind the charity, Teens Take Control Inc on the Sunshine Coast. The new vocational training program which focuses on nutrition, exercise and life skills for 15 to 25-year-olds who are not in school or at work will eventually be rolled out to other communities

• The meningococcal B vaccine Bexsero, is made by the company GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) and is only available on the private market, as it is not included in the Australian Immunisation Program schedule. GSK wrote on its website this past month about the shortage.

• The world’s first baby using a controversial new technique employed by US scientists to include DNA from three parents in the embryo has been born five months ago in Mexico to Jordanian parents and is healthy and doing well. The woman, whose identity was withheld by New Scientist, and her husband sought the help of John Zhang, a doctor from the New Hope Fertility Centre in New York City to have a baby that would be genetically related to them but would not carry the inherited disease Leigh Syndrome.

Overview:
•  McGrath Foundation’s inaugural Breast Health Index survey found while almost three quarters of women considered themselves “aware” of breast health, only 15 per cent met all four criteria for breast health understanding. McGrath Foundation CEO Petra Buchanan is hopeful because the research provides clear direction as to how we can address these factors.

• An elderly man developed gangrene and later died in hospital after staff at a Gold Coast nursing home failed to properly monitor and treat pressure wounds on his buttocks and feet, according to the Aged Care Complaints Commissioner. Ms Selir said her father-in-law was placed in a “fallout chair” for several hours at a time without being rotated and more should have been done to improve blood circulation but by the time Zdenek Selir reached the hospital, it was too late.

• A worldwide recall of testing kits used to screen for cytomegalovirus (CMV) was issued by manufacturer Siemens in September after it was revealed there was a risk they could have been producing false negative results. An SA Health spokesperson said All people who had a CMV test at SA Pathology between July 17,2 015 and August 24, 2016 should be rest assured that no incorrect result was found during the re-testing of more than 2,000 samples.

Overview:
•  Leia Mackie, from the Ipswich-based Domestic Violence Action Centre With Dave Burc from Carinity, an organisation that specialises in dealing with child trauma, she set up ReNew—a world-first initiative to break the cycle of domestic violence by stopping it in boyhood. ReNew focusses on the beginning of abusive, controlling or coercive behaviours—whether it is threats, verbal abuse, intimidation, or punching holes in the wall.

• A recent State Government move has seen paramedics provided with two years of death and disability income protection for paramedics, rather than the seven years provided to police. Paramedics have been protesting the cuts to their death and disability insurance for a few weeks, with chalk slogans on ambulances, and New England HSU branch president, Dave Lucietto said the action would continue.

• Edith Cowan University’s Melanoma Research Group is investigating a type of DNA found in the plasma of some cancer patients, which they are using to track tumours and monitor responses to treatment. It would be for patients already diagnosed with melanoma disease.

Overview:
•  The iECG replaces a traditional ECG machine to detect atrial fibrillation, which is responsible for one third of all strokes in Australia.A pilot program run by the Poche Centre for Indigenous Health at the University of Sydney is trialling the technology in far western New South Wales to create the first snapshot of atrial fibrillation rates in Aboriginal people.

• Closing the gap on health inequality would mean tackling the disproportionate distribution of global wealth, epidemiologist Sir Michael Marmot, the president of the World Medical Association, has argued in his latest Boyer Lecture. For Indigenous Australians, both poverty and ill-health are so entrenched and have existed for so long that Sir Michael said one could be forgiven for wondering if things can change.

• Fly fishing which involves a fishing rod and an artificial fly as bait, has been used as a form of breast cancer therapy in the United States since the mid-1990s, and is now benefiting West Australian women. Georgina Di Ciano was among a dozen women who took part in the retreat, hosted by Breast Cancer Care WA and Recfishwest.

Overview:
•  During 2013-14, there were 480 overnight mental health hospitalisations in inner-Adelaide, out of an estimated population of little more than 22,000 people — or 2,179 hospitalisations per 100,000 people — the highest in the country.

• Facebook chief executive Mark Zuckerberg and his wife Priscilla Chan have pledged more than $US3 billion ($4 billion) towards a plan to “cure, prevent or manage all disease[s] within our children’s lifetime”. Investments will include a bioscience research centre, and plans for a chip to diagnose diseases, continuous blood stream monitoring and a map of cell types in body.

• A Sydney naturopath appeared in the Parramatta District Court, charged with recklessly causing grievous bodily harm and aiding or abetting failure to provide necessities of life to a child. The naturopath’s defence has previously argued the blame lay with the child’s mother.