One might well ask what the % gain is for Pharmaceutical Companies compared with the % of medication scripts written and not used. How much medication is sold and unused? Who stands to gain the most by this government’s generosity?
Millions of Australians with chronic medical conditions will find it much cheaper to obtain medicines under a new measure to be included in next month’s federal budget.
Source: Sick to get more bang for their buck on prescriptions – Michael West
The UK isn’t the only one “looting” trained professionals from third-world countries Australia is too,
Meanwhile, the voice of Andrew Bolt can be heard crying ” don’t allow our medical professional’s to volunteer” in the case of Ebola in Africa.
While Cuba at times of need sends their professionals to where they are needed most. While our Australian Medical Association retains a post-WW2 attitude that cries out ” don’t let these Imports into practice because how do we know they are sufficiently trained?
Self-interest is reflected over and above the “common good” in our not so “Free Market Place” What’s left is fear, confusion and disrespect for practitioners.
The looting of artistic and religious objects from Africa and Asia by British invaders in the 19th century causes much rancorous debate about whether the artefacts should be returned to the countries they were originally stolen from. But the discussion is much more muted about equally acquisitive expeditions launched by Britain today that may ultimately cause more suffering than those imperialist ventures long ago.
Source: Luring Doctors From Poorer Countries is the UK’s Quiet Scandal – scheerpost.com
Yes, News Corpse’s Andrew Bolt tells us the very opposite. Warming is good it doesn’t kill
Health leaders are calling for the rapid roll out of a climate-health action plan as floods and extreme heat kill Australians.
Forty health and medical organisations warn pressure on the health system from climate change is growing as additional deaths add to the strain of a global pandemic.
Nurses, midwives, psychologists, the Australian Medical Association, the Royal Australasian College of Physicians (RACP) and others on Monday issued a set of urgent recommendations.
RACP president Jacqueline Small said doctors had a unique view and considerable experience of how climate health and human health fit together, and knew their communities.
“We see the impacts of climate change all the time, on our patients, and on our staff who are at the front line dealing with crises every day,” Dr Small said.
Source: Call for urgent climate-health action plan – Michael West
UAP and LNP stood maskless in defence of the freedom to be stupid. They stood firm against the socialist notion of common sense
But there was a sharp divide in those who took up that advice.
In both the upper and lower houses, Labor and Greens MPs wore the masks.
But, for a handful of exceptions, Coalition MPs chose to exercise their free choice not to wear them – a decision that attracted plenty of pointed criticism on social media.
One pro-choice voice in the Parliament was that of Victorian Senator Ralph Babet, of the United Australia Party.
“Everyone should be able to make their own decisions as grown men or women,” he told The New Daily.
Indoor masks divide new Parliament from its outset
Indoor masks divide new Parliament from its outset
Private equity vultures KKR are close to pitching a $20bn takeover bid for Australia’s largest private healthcare group, Ramsay Health Care which could see most of Australia’s private health system being controlled in foreign tax havens.
‘Inflamed: Deep Medicine And The Anatomy Of Injustice’ reveals a critical observation — that inflammation repeatedly connects poor health and structural injustice, writes April M Short.
Source: Why the poor suffer poor health: A capitalist legacy
Even if you are lucky enough to live in a wealthy country, one of the biggest influences on your health and life expectancy will be your socioeconomic status.
My thought for the day We all incur a cost for the upkeep of our health. Why then should we not be liable for the price of a healthy planet? ( John Lord )
Source: Where to now for a defeated and chaotic rabble – » The Australian Independent Media Network
It doesn’t matter whether you live in Sydney’s west or Vaucluse, or Melbourne’s Broadmeadows or Kew, your health needs are the same, our politicians believe. In trying to bolster services to rural Australians, the government has neglected struggling suburbs of our big cities, Callum Foote reports.
Source: Election issue: outer city areas are running out of GPs – Michael West Media
Diesel vehicles produce particulate which is hazardous to health when significant quantities have been ingested. They and petrol vehicles both produce carbon monoxide and other environmental nasties. It is rational to introduce price signals to modify behaviour that is injurious to health and welfare and governments have done this for decades. So why the proposal to tax something that is environmentally better than the alternative, such as energy efficient electric/hybrid vehicles? Since the justification is apparently that all vehicles should be treated equally to fund repairs, maintenance and new road construction, why doesn’t the transport industry ‘pay its way’ when its competition, the railway system, is forced to. Sounds like vested interests – doesn’t it? What do you think?
Source: Cigarettes, whiskey and electric cars – » The Australian Independent Media Network
It does strike me as a little premature for the Treasurer and others to start saying that whatever we spend now will have to be paid back. While we need a nuanced discussion about the best way to get the economy roaring along like the turtle it was pre-Coronavirus, to tweet something like that seems a bit premature. Like a doctor telling a family just before someone has surgery that the bill will need to be paid even if the patient dies.
It’s true, but it does make him sound as though the main thing on his mind is the health of his bank balance rather than the health of his patient.
Despite 60+ years of blockade by America Cuba’s health system runs rings over Americas.
They called it internationalism and said it was their revolutionary duty to repay their debt to society. They quoted Che Guevara: “The life of a single human being is worth a million times more than all the property of the richest man on earth.”
via We Should Applaud the Cuban Health System — and Learn From It
Goodbye to the Hippocratic Oath after 2000 years (ODT)
Doctors, nurses and other health workers can opt out of procedures such as abortions and sterilizations which violate their personal or religious beliefs, under a rule issued by the US Department of Health and Human Services on Thursday.
Yes Tony Abbott and Chris Kenny of News Corp intend to holiday there. Children and adults with serious complaints are removed from Australian towns. In the case of complaints on Nauru the doctors are removed.(ODT)
Former prime minister Tony Abbott says Nauru is being unfairly portrayed as a “hell-hole” when it is in fact a “very pleasant” place. Children and
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Key pointsTony Abbott said medical facilities on Nauru were better than in some Australian towns
Medical groups have called for the immediate removal of children from Nauru
Labor said it shouldn’t be taking the Government so long to resettle the refugees
Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – The US has fallen off a cliff on global health statistics, plummeting an unprecedented 21 places in the world index. Moreover, the US is expected to fall even further behind over the next 20 years. Mellan Solly at The Smithsonian Magazine analyzed the numbers in a just-published Lancet article
via Socialism is Healthy: US Barracuda Capitalism is Literally Killing us
Despite the distraction and political chaos of Brexit negotiations, the United Kingdom has just published a far-reaching and thoroughly impressive plan to manage risks from climate change.
This follows on from their broader 25-year Environment Plan, released in January. It aims to “help the natural world regain and retain good health”, to enable it to better cope with climate change.
The recently released climate plan is a strategy to save lives from heat, flood and fire — yes, fire, even in the UK!
Is life getting better in Australia? Not on some important measures, according to the latest Wellbeing Index.
Source: We’re richer, but sicker and less equal, according to the Lateral Economics Index of Wellbeing
Donald Trump is one huge step closer to repealing Obamacare, after the House of Representatives narrowly passed a healthcare bill aimed at undoing one of his predecessor’s biggest accomplishments.
The first-term congressman spent three decades as a physician and is now part of a group of Republican doctors trying to roll back Obamacare.
Source: The poor ‘just don’t want health care’: Republican congressman Roger Marshall
President reaffirms Republican commitment to repealing Affordable Care Act amid uncertainty over replacement and rising support for ‘Obamacare’
Also, American visitors can bring back as much tobacco and rum as they want.
An innovative new natural remedy released this week can lower the amount of money you carry on your body by up to 60%, studies have found.
Sold in tablet form and retailing for $59.95 a bottle, the breakthrough treatment will provide immediate relief to the wallets of desperate patients.
Sam Mathews, a scientist on the research team, said the new drug was found under strict double-blind testing to be 23 times more effective at reducing wallet size than a placebo. “We were amazed at just how efficient this new treatment is at lowering your finances. In some cases the effects were virtually immediate,” he said.
A spokesperson for the manufacturer said patients should take eleven tablets, eight times daily for best results
Reports indicating that the life-expectancy gap between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians is narrowing, are hopeful at best and do little to effect change, says Gerry Georgatos.
Source: Indigenous Australians are still dying 20 years younger
MANCHESTER, ENGLAND – (CT&P) – A new study out of Great Britain has revealed that the legacy of the 1960’s package holiday boom and the modern vogue for tanned complexions means retirees are now seven times more likely to get the most dangerous type of skin cancer than 40 years ago.
Older men are 10 times more likely to be diagnosed with malignant melanoma than their parents’ generation and women are five times more likely.
Cancer Research UK, which compiled the figures, said the huge increase was likely to be a consequence of people having greater access to sunny climes since the cost of a holiday abroad dropped significantly in the 1960s.
According to the most recent figures, 5700 over-65’s are diagnosed with melanoma in the UK every year, compared to only 600 in the 1970’s.
Although the study was carried out by researchers in the United Kingdom, similar rates of skin cancer are being seen in the United States and in some parts of continental Europe.
What is even more troubling is the fact that various types of skin cancers are being seen in younger and younger patients.
“We also see the recent tendency of westerners to turn into giant fat asses at earlier and earlier ages as a factor in the rise of malignant melanoma. As people slowly morph into slow-moving leviathans, they become less active and tend to spend time on vacation sitting immobile on the beach like deceased marine mammals.”
“The increased surface area of the epidermis caused by diets that could have been designed by Satan himself allows the sun’s rays to hit areas that did not even exist before,” said Sharp. “When one of these lumbering behemoths actually makes it onto a beach, they usually bring a rolling pantry full of beer, sandwiches, and potato chips with them so they can avoid the exhausting 100 meter trip back to the car until after the sun goes down.”
“Many of these elephantine creatures bring enough food and drink along with them to feed an African village for over a month. Then, after staking out an area large enough for a helicopter to land, they plant themselves on the sand and don’t budge for hours on end. It’s truly alarming.”
Dr. Sharp had some advice for young people that may help them avoid the fate that has befallen so many of their parents and grandparents.
“Never use a tanning bed,” she said. “It’s like sticking your head in a fucking microwave. Nothing good can come of it. Also, when going out in the sun for an extended period of time, the liberal use of sun blocking products is a good idea. But most importantly, don’t gorge yourself on all manner of manufactured food items until you become colossal mound of adipose tissue with four limbs sticking out from it. It’s unhealthy and makes you a nice juicy target for the blistering rays of the sun.”
The Cancer UK study is due to be published in next month’s Lancet and has already received great praise from everyone except the cruise industry and others deeply invested in the nurturing of various types of skin cancers.
Florida governor and ancient Aztec snake god Rick Scott remarked, “I’m no scientist, but I can tell you I don’t trust any study coming out of Great Britain. They have socialized medicine there, and besides, the bastards have never seen a ray of sunshine in their lives, so how the hell would they know?”
Governor Scott made the remarks while lying coiled on warm rock outside the capital building in Tallahassee.
LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA (CT&P) – “Pathogen Parties,” or get-togethers of otherwise healthy unvacccinated kids, are rapidly rising in popularity with the anti-vaxxer crowd on the west coast. The parties are designed to expose the children to deadly childhood and adult diseases in order to “toughen them up” for the coming ordeals and disappointments of adult life.
“What does not kill you makes you stronger, and we all want strong, healthy kids, don’t we?” said Theresa Twit of the Criminally Negligent Parents Association.
“We got the idea from reading about George Washington vaccinating his troops against smallpox,” said Twit. “He used pus from running sores on smallpox patients and scratched his healthy soldiers’ exposed skin with a filthy needle covered with the live virus. It made perfect sense to us.”
The organization has taken the idea one step further by recruiting diseased children and adults with a whole suite of different communicable diseases and turning them loose to play with the healthy, happy ones.
“We have partnered with Pathogens R Us, a website that hooks up infected individuals with concerned parents all over the United States,” said Twit. “We really owe them a great debt. There’s just no way we could have located enough afflicted people to be effective without their help.”
“Pathogens has made it possible for us to recruit kids and adults with all kinds of horrific diseases. They also provide great game ideas for the kids, such as ‘Bodily Fluids Bingo,’ ‘Pin the Tail on the Anthrax’, and ‘Hide and Go Die.’ They even sell a pinata filled with test tubes containing a wide variety of viruses and bacteria that the kids would normally never get a chance to experience.”
The CNPA has also formed a partnership with the popular kid’s party palace Chuck E. Cheese’s. The restaurant chain has developed an entirely new ‘West Coast’ menu featuring a variety of toppings laced with life-threatening microbes and parasites. Some of the most popular new pizzas include Salmonella Surprise, Staphylococcus Supreme, and a gourmet white pizza loaded with botulinum toxin called the Upchuckie.
“We just want our kids to form all the antibodies that are so necessary to combat disease,” said Twit. “We just don’t believe in doing it in the modern fashion accepted by scientists and the general public for decades. For example, we’re currently recruiting polio victims from Pakistan to come in and join us at a gala event at Disneyland next month. We just can’t wait.”
Pundits and public health officials around California have expressed alarm at the group’s activities and are strongly advising parents to keep their kids “the fuck away” from any parties designed to make their kids critically ill.
California Attorney General Kamela Harris has said publicly that if the parties continue she will be forced to charge the participants with child abuse and with being “too stupid to live in California.”
“These idiots don’t have the sense to get their kids vaccinated in the first place, and now they are importing diseased individuals from all over the world to do the job a doctor could have done in five minutes,” said Harris. “If these cretins want to return to the 7th century, I mean, fuck!”
Australian Doctor magazine says 1,100 readers took part in survey and quoted one GP as saying Dutton ‘will be remembered as the dullest, least innovative and most gullible’
Doctors have overwhelmingly voted Peter Dutton the worst health minister in living memory, according to a poll conducted by Australian Doctor magazine.
Forty-six per cent of the nearly 1,100 survey respondents voted Dutton the worst health minister in the last 35 years.
The magazine has a readership of around 20,000, mostly general practitioners and specialists.
Dutton took on the health portfolio after the Coalition won the 2013 federal election, but was moved to immigration and border protection in December’s ministerial reshuffle.
Medical groups have been vociferous in their opposition to the introduction of a Medicare copayment.
The government was forced to back down from its original $7 copayment plan, instead pursuing a $5 cut to rebates for doctors treating non-concession holder adult patients and a range of other reductions that doctors say would result in a cumulative cost to patients.
Head of the Australian Medical Association, Dr Brian Owler, said the changes had prompted “some of the angriest emails from doctors” that the organisation had received in a long time.
The Australian Doctor article quotes Tasmanian GP Dr Donald Rose as saying: “Dutton will be remembered as the dullest, least innovative and most gullible for swallowing the reforms from his thinktank … Although I am glad he has been demoted, it would have been good if he was still around to take responsibility for the current chaos he has caused.”
Former Gillard government health minister Nicola Roxon, who held the portfolio from 2009 to 2011, came in second after Dutton, securing 17% of the vote.
Current prime minister Tony Abbott, who was health minister from 2003 until the Howard government lost the 2007 election, rounded out the top three with 13% of the vote.
Guardian Australia has contacted Dutton’s office for comment.
Australia is prepared to risk the lives of Defence personnel by sending them to face danger and uncertainty in the Middle East, where the motivation is essentially border protection rather than compassion. Aside from any deaths or injuries, many members of the Defence forces will return to Australia from the Middle East suffering post-traumatic stress disorder and place a strain on mental health services for decades to come.
Australia – already one of the richest nations on earth financially – even richer. But when asked to reach out to people in need in other parts of the world, the Government is prepared to impose extra layers of red tape.Other nations and non government organisations apply Australia’s ‘open for business’ mindset to humanitarian emergencies. For example the Jesuit Refugee Service emphasises flexibility and rapid response in the way that it responds to international emergencies. President Obama has acted quick to dispatch 3000 military personnel to West Africa. They will train as many as 500 health care workers a week, erect 17 heath care facilities in Liberia of 100 beds each, and much more. For its part, Australia is putting red tape in place to stop skilled individual volunteers who are willing and able to travel to West Africa.
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