The Health News United Kingdom October 2 2017

Overview

• Appetite for change stirred after announcement of two thousand eighteen referendum on Ireland’s strict laws on terminations. Thousands of people have protested in Dublin, calling for an end to Ireland’s strict abortion laws.
• According to physiotherapists, online shopping makes people weak because they no longer carry home groceries. Internet shopping was hailed as an end to the back-breaking schlep from the supermarket or department store weighed down with cumbersome carrier bags and boxes.
• Critics fear checks will destroy relationship National Health Service staff have with patients and create climate of fear that stops people accessing care. Protesters gathered at Saint Thomas’ hospital in central London on Saturday to voice opposition to the introduction of ID checks at hospitals and up-front charges for patients not eligible for NHS care.
  

News on Health Professional Radio. Today is the 2nd of  October 2017. Read by Tabetha Moreto. Health News

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/sep/30/thousands-march-in-dublin-calling-for-end-to-irelands-abortion-ban

Appetite for change stirred after announcement of two thousand eighteen referendum on Ireland’s strict laws on terminations. Thousands of people have protested in Dublin, calling for an end to Ireland’s strict abortion laws. Campaigners took part in the March for Choice in the capital’s city centre, chanting: “Hey, hey Leo, the eighth amendment has got to go” and carrying banners which read: “Keep your rosaries off my ovaries” and “Parent by choice for choice”.
This year’s march, the sixth in a series of annual events, was more significant than ever given the recent confirmation there will be a referendum on abortion next year. The government recently set a potential timescale of early summer two thousand eighteen for a referendum on the eighth amendment, the section of Ireland’s constitution imposing tight legal restrictions on terminations.  The amendment, which was voted into the constitution by referendum in nineteen eighty three, affords equal rights to unborn babies and pregnant women and gives foetuses the right to life by law. Terminations are only permitted when the life of the mother is at risk, and the maximum penalty for having an illegal abortion in Ireland is fourteen years in prison. Thousands of Irish women travel to the British mainland each year to have a legal termination. Campaigners gathered at the Garden of Remembrance at lunchtime, making their way down the city’s main thoroughfare, O’Connell Street.
….
Anti-abortion activists staged counter-events in Dublin and across Ireland calling for the eighth amendment to be preserved, indicating protests from both sides are likely to intensify in the lead-up to the referendum. A pro-choice rally was staged outside the Irish embassy in London on Saturday, with campaigners highlighting the numbers of Irish women who have travelled to Britain for an abortion in the last three decades.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/2017/09/29/online-shopping-makes-people-weak-no-longer-carry-home-groceries/

According to physiotherapists, online shopping makes people weak because they no longer carry home groceries. Internet shopping was hailed as an end to the back-breaking schlep from the supermarket or department store weighed down with cumbersome carrier bags and boxes.
But while online stores have offered much-wanted convenience, they are ruining our muscles, physiotherapists have warned. Fail to carry home their own groceries is stripping people of muscle-strengthening exercises that help keep them healthy into older age, according to the Chartered Society of Physiotherapy.

Its poll of more than two thousand people found twenty four percent of those aged sixty five and over admit that they now do no strengthening activities at all each week.

This puts them at increasing risk of falls and other health problems, the society has warned.
NHS guidelines suggest people do two strengthening sessions a week, such as exercising with weights, or lifting and carrying heavy loads such as groceries. For people aged sixty five and over, the sessions can also include activities that involve stepping and jumping, such as dancing. Professor Karen Middleton, chief executive of the Chartered Society of Physiotherapy, said: “Online shopping may be very convenient but it does mean that we are losing some of the methods that used to exist for strengthening our muscles.
….
The Centre for Ageing Better and Public Health England is currently carrying out an expert review into the benefits of strength and balance activities for older people. It will culminate in a series of practical recommendations for the public, practitioners and policy makers on what physical activities are most effective in increasing strength and balance. In the last two years in England, over a quarter of adults over the age of sixty and almost forty percent of adults over the age of eighty reported a fall. Falls cause an estimated ninety five percent of all hip fractures, which cost the National Health Service over one billion pounds every year.

https://www.theguardian.com/society/2017/sep/30/protesters-stage-london-demo-against-plans-for-patient-id-checks
Critics fear checks will destroy relationships National Health Service staff have with patients and create climate of fear that stops people accessing care. Protesters gathered at Saint Thomas’ hospital in central London on Saturday to voice opposition to the introduction of ID checks at hospitals and up-front charges for patients not eligible for NHS care. People from overseas are already liable for the cost of treatment, but new rules will require hospitals, community interest companies and charities receiving NHS funds to identify such patients before treatment in order to bill them. At the same time, twenty hospitals across the UK are trialling ID checks that require patients to present two forms of ID before they are treated. The government says that the changes lower the burden from health tourism, which is blamed for costing the NHS millions every year.

Critics fear that the new checks will discourage undocumented migrants from accessing vital care, which could pose a risk to the wider public. Jess Potter, a part-time registrar at Saint Bartholomew’s hospital who specialises in lung problems including tuberculosis, said patients suffering from the infectious disease could go undetected if they were afraid to visit a doctor. As a dangerous and infectious disease, TB falls under a range of conditions for which patients will not be charged up front. “But people don’t walk around with a big sign saying: ‘I’ve got TB,’” Potter said.