The Health News USA August 30 2017

Overview

• Expectant mothers in the UK are paying for private midwives to help them give birth on the NHS amid claims that maternity services are in crisis. A commercial midwifery company now has a contract with ten NHS trusts, with up to three hundred women a year using a private midwife during their pregnancy.
• Government schemes to help civil servants, teachers, social workers and health workers get back to work after a career break have been launched. The schemes are paid placements in the workplace which include training.
• According to experts that cancer patients are suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) following the trauma of treatment. As soaring numbers of people in Britain are diagnosed with the disease, emotional problems are on the rise.

News on Health Professional Radio. Today is the 30th of August 2017. Read by Tabetha Moreto. Health New

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-4828458/New-mothers-hire-private-midwives-deliver-babies.html

Expectant mothers are paying for private midwives to help them give birth on the NHS amid claims that maternity services are in crisis. It can cost up to five thousand pounds to hire a private midwife for antenatal appointments, private scans and to oversee labour in a hospital ward. But faced with the prospect of seeing several midwives on the NHS, rising numbers of women are choosing to pay a premium for one-to-one attention. A commercial midwifery company now has a contract with ten NHS trusts, with up to three hundred women a year using a private midwife during their pregnancy. Meanwhile, in the NHS, one report shows eighty eight percent of women never met their midwife before going into labour while five per cent saw more than ten for their antenatal appointments.Private Midwives has signed deals covering eighteen hospitals and birth centres. In two thousand twelve only fifty women paid for its midwives, but in five years that has risen to five hundred.

While part of the rise comes from the growth of its NHS contracts, and the increase also includes home births, its midwives took two hundred women into NHS hospitals in the twelve months to July. Earlier this year, figures showed that maternity staff are making more than one thousand four hundred mistakes in NHS wards a week. At least two hundred fifty nine women or babies died between two thousand thirteen and two thousand sixteen due to avoidable or unexpected circumstances. Maternity units are coming under increasing strain due to the rising birth rate and the higher number of older and obese women having complex labours.

http://www.bbc.com/news/business-41068554

Government schemes to help civil servants, teachers, social workers and health workers get back to work after a career break have been launched. The schemes are paid placements in the workplace which include training. The initial schemes offer fifty places for civil servants, one hundred for social workers and three hundred for health professional returners.The returner programmes are open to both genders, but are expected to particularly help women.

The places are being funded from the five million pounds earmarked in this year’s budget.
The scheme could help people who have taken time out to bring up children or for other caring responsibilities. Skills minister Anne Milton said that millions of us need to take time out from our careers, but it can be really hard to return and women in particular find the routes back into employment closed off after taking time out to start a family. The programmes should make it “routine” for women to go back to the workplace and get on with their careers, and would ultimately help tackle the gender pay gap, she said. The initial schemes are for the public sector, but the government said it was also talking to business groups on how to further boost opportunities for women returning to work.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-4828660/Surviving-cancer-cause-PTSD-says-expert.html

Cancer patients are suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder following the trauma of treatment. As soaring numbers of people in Britain are diagnosed with the disease, experts say emotional problems are on the rise. Even after receiving the all-clear, people who have had cancer suffer fear, anger and disrupted sleep. This can lead to PTSD which is similar to that suffered by soldiers and victims of natural disasters, according to a psychotherapist from the Priory mental health group. Julia Cole, from the Priory’s Wellbeing Centre in Southampton, spoke following warnings from charity Macmillan Cancer Support that two hundred forty thousand British people have mental health problems caused by their cancer treatment.
….
Research has suggested the mental fog often experienced by breast cancer patients after chemotherapy might be due more to post-traumatic stress than the powerful drugs.
That theory is supported by women experiencing problems with their brain function and memory even before chemotherapy starts. PTSD is more often associated with traumatic events such as war, natural disasters and serious accidents. But one study has suggested nearly one in four women newly diagnosed with breast cancer have the disorder, often triggered by diagnosis or painful tests and treatments. It causes nightmares, flashbacks, numbness, self-destructive behaviour and feelings of guilt and hopelessness.