Health News – 09 Jan 2015

Overview

• Labor says it would guarantee safe nurse-patient ratios if it wins office at the Queensland election later this month.

• More than a third of nursing students are experiencing physical violence during clinical placements, research shows.

• More than 110 people have fallen ill after eating at a Chin Chin Chinese restaurant at Springwood South of Brisbane, health authorities say. The restaurant has been suspended while investigations are carried out into the salmonella outbreak.

News on Health Professional Radio. Today is the 9th January 2015. Read by Rebecca Foster. Health News

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-01-08/queensland-election-labor-pledges-extra-400-health-workers/6006398

Labor says it would guarantee safe nurse-patient ratios if it wins office at the Queensland election later this month.

Health was one of the key reasons Labor imploded at the 2012 state election, amid the fallout from the costly health payroll saga and the fake Tahitian prince fraud case.

But it was the area Opposition Leader Annastacia Palaszczuk [PALASHAY] headed straight to… in releasing the first major policy of the campaign.

Ms Palaszczuk said the LNP Government had cut more than 4,800 positions from hospitals and health since being elected in 2012.

She said a Labor government would recruit an extra 400 nurses, costing $110 million over four years.

Ms Palaszczuk said she wanted one-to-one nurse-patient ratios in intensive care units and four-to-one on general wards.

“I don’t want patient safety compromised – neither do the nurses and neither does the public,” she said.

But Ms Palaszczuk was not able to say how patient care was suffering.

“I have evidence from the nurses because I’ve been speaking to these nurses right across the state,” she said.

She said more than 1,800 nurses lost their jobs under the LNP.
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http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-01-08/nursing-students-kicked-and-punched-during-clinical-placements/6003146

More than a third of nursing students are experiencing physical violence during clinical placements, research shows.

About 60 per cent of students also reported experiencing abuse from patients, patients’ relatives and other healthcare workers.

Murdoch University PhD student Martin Hopkins conducted a survey of 150 students undertaking clinical placements in Perth hospitals.

The former emergency department nurse and nursing lecturer said due to a shortage of nurses on the wards, many students were carrying out frontline care.

“We had reports of kicking, punching, biting from people, we even had one student say that someone tried to stab them,” he said.

“These students are in life threatening situations that we weren’t aware of.”

Mr Hopkins said many students said they would reconsider nursing as a career as a result of their experiences of violence during clinical placements.
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Australian Nursing Federation state secretary Mark Olson said the union encourages student nurses to report any aggressive behaviour they encounter while on clinical placement.

“Nobody comes to work to be punched, kicked, bitten or spat at, so why do nurses have to put up with it?” he said.

“Unfortunately, I have to say that the Treasury’s latest savings measures to remove senior staff from the frontline is not a step in the right direction and has the potential to make hospitals a more dangerous place to work.
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Mr Hopkins said while registered nurses were offered training in dealing with violence, it was now clear undergraduates needed such training before on-the-job training.
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http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-01-08/more-than-110-people-ill-after-suspected-salmonella-outbreak/6006958

More than 110 people have fallen ill after eating at a Chinese restaurant south of Brisbane, health authorities say.

Trading at the Chin Chin restaurant at Springwood has been suspended while investigations are carried out into the salmonella outbreak.

Dr Kari Jarvinen from the Metro South Public Health Unit said they were looking into eggs as the source of the outbreak, possibly in deep fried ice-cream.

“We are certainly quite suspicious of a deep fried egg product and that is a risk product at the best of times when you’re combining a cold food with a hot layer on top,” he said.

“[It] becomes difficult to maintain proper temperature control and indeed to sterilise it to get rid of any organisms that might be there.”

He said the victims ate at the restaurant between January 3 to 5.
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