Author: healthprofessionalradio

Overview:
• British organisation NHS Blood and Transplant launched the “Missing Type” campaign, asking people to drop three letters — A, O and B — from their name. In Australia, one blood donation is needed every 24 seconds and around 100,000 new donors are needed in the next year alone, according to the Australian Red Cross who have joined the international drive.

• Sydney TAFE food technologist Vera Szopen warned bacteria such as Listeria had been known to cause fatalities and was particularly dangerous for pregnant women. One of the common ways to avoid food poisoning is to look at food labels, although they can be confusing. Dietician Lisa Ren explained the differences between common terms, “Best before means it’s not really a food safety risk [to eat after this date] but the quality may be decreased. ‘Use by’ is around whether the food can be unsafe.”

• The Federal Opposition has seized on reports some disability service providers have gone without payments under the National Disability Insurance Scheme, suggesting the Government is dragging its feet and being secretive about a review into the problem. 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.

Overview:
• Jake Martin-Herde, 28, has admitted to two counts of offering and providing cosmetic tanning for a fee to the public. The practice was outlawed in SA last year and is illegal throughout Australia. EPA chief executive Tony Circelli said the case highlighted the need to stamp out the use of tanning beds for a profit.

• Representatives from the Communications, Electrical and Plumbing Union (CEPU) and the Construction, Forestry, Mining and Energy Union (CFMEU) were at the the Royal Hobart Hospital handing out registration forms to concerned workers to remove asbestos from the RHH redevelopment site to improve productivity., to be sent to the Asbestos Compensation Commissioner.

• The number of whooping cough cases in Victoria were 4,615 cases in 2014, compared to 1,808 cases so far this year, and the number of cases affecting children under five has more than halved. The Government credits the drop to reinstating a vaccination program that was axed by the former coalition government.

Overview:
• Medical marijuana is expected to be made available to children with severe epilepsy sometime next year in Victoria, after the Government committed $28.5 million in this year’s budget.

• Former East German sportspeople have spoken to Foreign Correspondent about their doping past. Almost three decades after the end of the East German regime, they say their physical and mental health has been severely damaged by years of taking performance-enhancing drugs.

• Melbourne researchers say they have successfully grown and implanted cornea cells to cure blindness. Researchers are now preparing for human trials. The technique, developed by researchers at Melbourne University and the Centre for Eye Research, could replace transplants of donated cornea.

Overview:
• This week marks the 50th anniversary of the Battle of Long Tan on August 18, 1966 — the day chosen to commemorate Vietnam Veterans Day. More than five decades on, the first study of its type in Australia is using group drumming by PhD candidate James Richmond to assist veterans to live with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).

• The University of Queensland found cockroach and ant baits accounted for 39 per cent of the calls from parents with children under five after analysing calls made to the Queensland Poisons Information Centre in 2014. The research, published in the Australian and New Zealand Journal of Public Health on Monday, showed exposure to bug sprays via direct application, typically by the child or an older sibling, peaked in children aged two.

• One of the findings of a study conducted by James Cook University’s Australian Institute of Tropical Health and Medicine in conjunction with the Bureau of Health and the Centre for Primary Health Care and Equity is that a quarter of chronically ill Australians are skipping treatment because of the cost.

Overview:
• Federal Health Minister Sussan Ley announced the new diabetes treatment Exanatide will be subsidised under the PBS from September 1, along with an extra $70 million investment in the scheme for a cervical cancer drug and a treatment for a rare growth disease.

• South Wales Opposition is calling for an independent investigation into the reported unapproved use of antibiotics at Royal North Shore Hospital after concerns it may increase the risk of the spread of superbugs. More than 38,000 doses of restricted antibiotics have been prescribed by doctors at the hospital without approval, Fairfax Media is reporting, citing documents it obtained.

• Sydney Children’s Hospital in Randwick has discovered incorrectly labelled gas outlets during checks ordered after a gas mix-up at Bankstown Hospital resulted in the death of a newborn baby and the injury of another. The labels on the outlet in a patient room had now been corrected and no patients were affected.