Thursday, July 19, 2007

The Capital & Coast District Health Board today issued a “code red” for two Wellington hospitals. Both Wellington Hospital and Kenepuru Community Hospital have a staff shortage of about 20 nurses, and the hospital is calling on any help available.

Dr Robyn Toomath, director of clinical support services at the Health Board, is calling for “any qualified nurses in the community who are between jobs, are on extended leave or are semi-retired, who might be able to help fill in, or to do some short term work for us.”

“As of today we are around 20 nurses down compared to our usual staffing levels, primarily due to illness” said Dr Toomath. “We have physical beds available, but we can’t admit patients unless there are appropriate levels of staff to safely resource those beds.”

The message to the general public was to “please save our Emergency Department for emergencies”, she said. “We want to be able to focus our Emergency Department resources on patients who genuinely need hospital-level care.”

Any qualified nurses who are willing to help at either of the two hospitals should contact Steve Crew in the Patient Services Coordination Unit, at the Capital and Coast District Health Board.

Tuesday, March 29, 2005A team of Australian surgeons yesterday reattached both hands and one foot to 10-year-old Perth boy, Terry Vo, after a brick wall which collapsed during a game of basketball fell on him, severing the limbs. The wall gave way while Terry performed a slam-dunk, during a game at a friend’s birthday party.

The boy was today awake and smiling, still in some pain but in good spirits and expected to make a full recovery, according to plastic surgeon, Mr Robert Love.

“What we have is parts that are very much alive so the reattached limbs are certainly pink, well perfused and are indeed moving,” Mr Love told reporters today.

“The fact that he is moving his fingers, and of course when he wakes up he will move both fingers and toes, is not a surprise,” Mr Love had said yesterday.

“The question is more the sensory return that he will get in the hand itself and the fine movements he will have in the fingers and the toes, and that will come with time, hopefully. We will assess that over the next 18 months to two years.

“I’m sure that he’ll enjoy a game of basketball in the future.”

The weight and force of the collapse, and the sharp brick edges, resulted in the three limbs being cut through about 7cm above the wrists and ankle.

Terry’s father Tan said of his only child, the injuries were terrible, “I was scared to look at him, a horrible thing.”

The hands and foot were placed in an ice-filled Esky and rushed to hospital with the boy, where three teams of medical experts were assembled, and he was given a blood transfusion after experiencing massive blood loss. Eight hours of complex micro-surgery on Saturday night were followed by a further two hours of skin grafts yesterday.

“What he will lose because it was such a large zone of traumatised skin and muscle and so on, he will lose some of the skin so he’ll certainly require lots of further surgery regardless of whether the skin survives,” said Mr Love said today.

The boy was kept unconscious under anaesthetic between the two procedures. In an interview yesterday, Mr Love explained why:

“He could have actually been woken up the next day. Because we were intending to take him back to theatre for a second look, to look at the traumatised skin flaps, to close more of his wounds and to do split skin grafting, it was felt the best thing to do would be to keep him stable and to keep him anaesthetised.”

Professor Wayne Morrison, director of the respected Bernard O’Brien Institute of Microsurgery and head of plastic and hand surgery at Melbourne’s St Vincent’s Hospital, said he believed the operation to be a world first.

Thursday, September 28, 2006

The Health Board of New York City on Tuesday presented a plan to ban trans fatty acids (or trans fat) from the eateries in the city. The ban would not involve grocery stores, or natural trans fat that is present in dairy products or meat from ruminants.

The proposal follows a campaign last year to encourage restaurants to cut down on using trans fat themselves, but recent surveys show that the campaign was unsuccessful. In 2003, the city already instituted a smoking ban in restaurants, which was met with protest, but the measure has been copied in many other states since.

In Western countries, most trans fat in food today is the result of industrial processing, and has been linked to coronary heart disease. Frying oils, shortening and margarines with trans fats have easier storing requirements. Artificial trans fat is considered by some experts to be even more dangerous than natural trans fat.

The new limit would be at 0.5 grams of trans fatty acids per menu item, whereas a typical serving of French fries contains about 8 grams. It would be instituted in several phases, allowing time for eateries to adapt.

The plan would also have serious implications for both fast food chains and restaurants. A spokesperson for the New York State Restaurant Association reacted with disbelief, stating that “Labeling is one thing, but when they totally ban a product, it goes well beyond what we think is prudent and acceptable,” referring to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s requirement for food labels to list trans fat, a measure taken last January.

The Boards Health Commissioner Dr. Thomas Frieden on the other hand said the ban would be a challenge for cooks, but substitute oils can easily be found. Comparing it to lead paint, he said “It is a dangerous and unnecessary ingredient”, adding that “No one will miss it when it’s gone.”

A similar ban is being considered in Chicago, but would only target companies with annual revenues over $20 million, thereby targeting exclusively major fast-food restaurants. The U.S. brands Wendy’s, Crisco, Frito-Lay, Starbucks, Subway, and Kraft’s have already taken action to remove trans fat from some of their products.

Denmark became the first country in the world imposing strict regulations on trans fatty acids in March 2003. McDonalds consequently started using trans fat-free oils in Denmark, but has not yet switched over in the United States.

A public hearing is scheduled on October 30, and a final vote on the proposal is scheduled for December.

Thursday, March 13, 2008

Members of Australia’s Health Services Union (HSU) will go on strike in Victoria next week in a dispute over stalled wage and career structure negotiations. Over 5000 physiotherapists, speech pathologists and radiation therapists will walk off the job next week, effectively closing the state’s 68 largest health services.

The strike will force the closure of intensive care units and emergency departments across the state.

It is feared the strike could continue into Easter.

National secretary of the HSU, Kathy Jackson said admissions would be crippled, while intensive care patients would have to be evacuated to New South Wales, Tasmania and South Australia as hospitals will not be able to perform tests or administer treatment.

“When an ambulance shows up you can’t admit a patient without an X-ray being available, you can’t intubate them and you can’t operate on them,” she said.

“If something goes wrong in an ICU you need to be able to X-ray, use nuclear medicine or any diagnostic procedure,” said Ms Jackson.

Ms Jackson said the HSU offered arbitration last year, but the state government refused. “They’re not interested in settling disputes, they hope that we are just going to go away.”

“We’re not going away, we’ve gone back and balloted the whole public health workforce in Victoria, those ballots were successful, 97 percent approval rating,” she said.

The HSU is urging the government to commence serious negotiations to resolve the dispute before industrial action commenced.

The government has offered the union a 3.25 per cent pay increase, in line with other public sector workers but the union has demanded more, but stopped short of specifying a figure.

Victorian Premier John Brumby said the claim would be settled according to the government’s wages policy. “The Government is always willing and wanting to sit down and negotiate with the relevant organisations . . . we have a wages policy based around an increase of 3.25 per cent and, above that, productivity offset,” he told parliament.

The union claims it is also arguing against a lack of career structure, which has caused many professionals to leave the health service. Ms Jackson said wages and career structures in Victoria were behind other states.

Victorian Opposition Leader Ted Baillieu said he was not in support of the proposed strike and called on the government to meet with unions. “There could not be a more serious threat to our health system than has been announced today.”

“We now have to do whatever is possible to stop this strike from proceeding,” he said.

The opposition leader will meet with the union at 11:30 AM today.

Victorian Hospitals Industry Association industrial relations services manager Simon Chant said hospitals were looking at the possible impact and warned that patients may have to be evacuated interstate if the strike goes ahead.

Saturday, August 20, 2005

A power outage in Indonesia that left about 100 million people without electricity has caused a political crisis. The country’s state-owned energy monopoly, PLN, has not determined the immediate cause, and the country’s president has ordered the national intelligence agency and police to investigate.

The blackout appears related to deficiencies in Indonesia’s power generation capacity.

The power failure follows attempts to deal with the country’s growing energy crisis, including conservation and trying to allow private companies to provide energy, which was ruled unconstitutional in 2004. In January, the Indonesian government held a special energy summit to attract investment in their energy infrastructure. At the summit they set the goal of adding 22,000 megawatts to Indonesia’s present capacity of 23,000 megawatts, in order to support the country’s growth.

The World Bank and others have warned that without more investment in the country’s energy infrastructure an energy deficit will result. However, foreign investors remain wary of investing in Indonesia. “The power outage has resulted in worries over an energy crisis which could hurt the nation’s industrial sector,” said a trader on Indonesia’s stock market.[1]

The outage began at 10:23 a.m. local time, August 18, 2005, when power failed along the electrical system that connects Java, Bali, and Madura, causing outages in Java and Bali. Almost half of the country depends on the electrical grid that experienced failures. Some of the main lines on the grid are over 20 years old, according to PLN president Eddie Widiono.

The blackout caused traffic jams in Jakarta, forced cancellation of several international and domestic flights at Jakarta’s Soekarno-Hatta International Airport, shut down Jakarta’s electric train service, and disrupted hospital operations. Some larger hospitals were forced to delay surgeries while many smaller hospitals could not receive patients. About 1,800 officers were called into action by Jakarta’s metropolitan police to deal with short-term problems caused by the power failure.

Candles used in place of electric lighting started six fires in Jakarta alone.

Mulyo Aji, a PLN official, said more power failures are likely in the future as energy demand increases, without any corresponding new supplies of electricity scheduled to come online soon.