Author: healthprofessionalradio

Overview:
•  Wollongong painter Jorge Invernon got to a point in his life where he urgently needed to press pause, and with his life on hold, he dived into the slums of India and mountains of Nepal. He also spent time trekking in Nepal, where he plans to return next year for charity work. Mr Invernon has come back to his old life in Australia a changed man. He said his trip had given him new perspectives.

• The Department of Defence  released its human health assessment regarding the detection of poly-fluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) contamination around the base. The report found there was a low and acceptable risk to health associated with typical exposure to the PFAS detected in the environment for the general community.

• A study funded by the Heart Foundation conducted across four Adelaide hospitals found Aboriginal people were between 40 and 50 per cent less likely to receive an angiogram. Researchers found “significant disparities in the process of patient assessment leading up to receipt of an angiogram test” after looking at SA Health data and medical records of all Aboriginal admissions.

Overview:
•  The Australian Longitudinal Study on Women’s Health was started back in 1996 to ensure the country’s health policy was based on hard data. It followed 58,000 women across the country and the generations and is one of the biggest studies of its kind globally. The study is expanding to include the health of the children from the original young cohort — all 16,000 of them.

• The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has banned several key chemicals in antibacterial hand soap, warning of health risks and saying they were not more effective than ordinary soap. The FDA move took aim at 19 ingredients including the two most common, triclosan and triclocarban, which are widely included in liquid and bar antibacterial soaps despite fears they damage the immune system.

• Aboriginal health worker Kristika Kumar is training to run the New York marathon in a bid to raise awareness of the importance of exercise to help close the health gap in her community. The 25-year-old was inspired to take up running after observing the impact of chronic diseases, such as diabetes, heart disease and kidney failure on the people of Wreck Bay, about 38 kilometres south of Nowra, on the south coast of NSW.

Overview:
•  A dispute over a lack of clinical trial room at the new Royal Adelaide Hospital may be resolved by using space at the South Australian Health and Medical Research Institute (SAHMRI) building. Two internal reports showed not all clinical trials could continue at the new hospital due to space constraints.

• The opening of a new emergency department on the New South Wales north coast will not result in an immediate increase in capacity.
The ward is part of a $280 million redevelopment of the Lismore Base Hospital. The old 19-bed emergency ward consistently struggled to meet national benchmarks for the timely treatment of some patients.

• Lighting up in Queensland will be outlawed at or near childcare and aged care facilities, bus stops and taxi ranks, public pools, children’s sporting venues, skate parks and outdoor malls. The sale of tobacco products from pop-up retail outlets, such as at music festivals, has also been banned. The laws passed through Parliament in February.

Overview:
•  Lengthy delays in payment for disability services providers under the National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS) are being blamed on a ‘short-lived’ technical glitch and a lack of information for people using a new computer system. It stems from a problem with the website established by the National Disability Insurance Agency (NDIA), with NDIS providers and participants having been unable to process their payment applications.

• The WA Peer Naloxone Project trained users and family members how to administer naloxone, which is used in emergency medicine to reverse the effects of opiates. The National Drug Research Institute said of 153 people trained, 32 of them reported they had saved lives with naloxone.

• Professor John Attia from the University of Newcastle is the lead investigator of the Australian Study for the Prevention through Immunisation of Cardiovascular Events (AUSPICE). The trial is currently looking for 6,000 participants in Melbourne, Newcastle, Perth, Adelaide, Canberra and Gosford who are between the ages of 55-60 and have not had a heart attack or stroke.

Overview:
•  Chief Health Officer Dr Kerry Chant said two babies — one stillborn and one miscarried — had been mixed-up by staff at Royal North Shore Hospital last year because a blanket obscured an identification tag. Both of the babies’ bodies were then cremated, despite the family of one of the children requesting a burial. The health department apologised to both of the families and offered grief counselling.

• The 3rd Brigade, based in north Queensland, has provided subjects for the Human Performance Framework program, which includes activities such as skydiving, and borrows technology and techniques from Australia’s elite sporting clubs. Using a smartphone app, senior officers can keep track of the mental and physical wellbeing of soldiers and allow them to tailor their training programs.

• An early study by the Hudson Institute of Medical Research showed women who had less of the naturally occurring acid creatine in their urine had significantly smaller babies. Dr Hayley Dickinson, head of embryology at Hudson Institute and Monash University’s Ritchie Centre, said creatine, which is often used by athletes in supplements, was both made in the body and also came from the consumption of meat.

Overview:
•  Doctors have criticised chef Pete Evans’ dietary advice that dairy removes calcium from bones, including the medical director of Osteoporosis Australia and head of medicine at Monash University, Professor Peter Ebeling. In a study published in 2013, Dr Ebeling and his research team found calcium had a direct correlation to health outcomes.

• A 25-year- old man recovering from a coma has made remarkable progress following a treatment to ‘jump-start’ his brain using ultrasound, University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) doctors say. The technique uses sonic stimulation to excite the neurons in the thalamus, an egg-shaped structure that serves as the brain’s central hub for processing information.

• Under the NDIS hundreds of thousands of Australians living with a disability will be allocated a budget to manage and choose what support they want to receive. Enter the Hireup app, which uses social networking technology to match people with carers based on their shared interests and personality, rather than just needs.

Overview:
•  The Federal Government says new figures on bulk billing rates prove Labor’s campaign on its treatment of Medicare has no basis, with an increase in the number of GP visits fully paid for by the scheme last financial year. Out of 145 million GP services, 123 million were fully funded under Medicare in the 2015/16 financial year.

• Playing in nature used to be a part of everyone’s childhood but researchers say it has become an increasingly foreign concept in Western countries with changes to the way we live, the places we live in and advances in technology. Exposure to nature also has important physiological impacts, said paediatrics specialist Professor Susan Prescott from the University of Western Australia.

• The Sleep Apnoea Cardiovascular Endpoints (SAVE) study monitored sleep apnoea patients with a pre-existing vascular disease over four years in 89 hospitals in Australia, New Zealand, India, the US, Spain and Brazil. The results of the study released this week showed the CPAP treatment made no difference to whether patients had a major cardiovascular event.