Rabu, 20 Juni 2012
There has been no directive from the Newman government to
stop funding free tea and coffee for doctors and nurses, according to
the biggest Brisbane public hospitals, the Health Minister and
Queensland Health.
Media reports today said free tea and coffee for doctors
and nurses in public hospitals had fallen victim to the LNP government's
budget cuts.
But a spokesman for Queensland Health said this morning
the department did not give directives to hospitals on policies to do
with tea and coffee.
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"There is no directive to hospitals whatsoever to stop giving staff free tea and coffee," he said.
"There is no Queensland-wide directive on whether to give free tea or coffee at all."
The decision to give supply tea and coffee for doctors and nurses at hospitals is undertaken by the hospitals themselves.
In most cases individual units in the hospital have an
amount of discretionary spending which they can spend on what they
choose to and usually includes tea and coffee.
It is also not against Queensland Health policy for
doctors and nurses to bring their own tea and coffee from home to the
hospital.
Today's media reports said staff were banned from bringing their own tea and coffee because of ''sterilisation'' issues.
A spokeswoman for Princess Alexandra Hospital said the
hospital had not issued any directive to their staff that it would stop
providing free tea and coffee.
A spokeswoman for the Royal Brisbane and Women's Hospital
said there had been no directive from either Queensland Health to the
hospital or the hospital itself that free tea and coffee should not be
given to staff.
Health Minister Lawrence Springborg said the government
had directed hospitals to make savings in their budget but at no time
had specified hospitals should not provide their staff with free tea and
coffee.
He said to avoid any confusion he was asking his
Director-General to specifically tell all hospitals not to cut free tea
and coffee for staff.
"We've got a lot of staff who work very, very hard and
sometimes they don't even get to eat dinner," he told
brisbanetimes.com.au.
"We need to make savings in the budget but we don't think taking away tea and coffee from hospital staff is the way to go."
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Fremantle are set to make at least four changes for Saturday's AFL
clash with Essendon in Perth after midfielder Stephen Hill's bid to
recover from an ankle injury fell short.
Hill tweaked his ankle early in the June 9 match against
Richmond, but battled on through the pain to play a crucial role in the
12-point win.
However, last week's bye wasn't enough for Hill to
sufficiently recover from the injury, with Dockers coach Ross Lyon
confirming the 22-year-old was unlikely to face the Bombers.
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Hill's absence comes at a bad time for the Dockers, who
also need to find replacements for ruckman Aaron Sandilands (turf toe),
defender Zac Dawson (knee) and goalsneak Hayden Ballantyne (suspended).
Kepler Bradley and Zac Clarke will battle it out to replace Sandilands, while Alex Silvagni is set to come in for Dawson.
Lyon said Michael Walters, Jayden Pitt, Nick Lower and
Paul Duffield were all in the selection mix for the other two spots, but
midfielder Anthony Morabito will spend at least another week in the
WAFL building match fitness.
Fremantle sit 11th on the table with a 6-5 record, while
the Bombers have compiled an 8-3 record but enter Saturday's clash on
the back of two straight losses.
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The ashes of Dreamworld's original white tiger will be buried at the
theme park's Tiger Island after he was put down by vets yesterday.
Staff at Dreamworld decided to put down Mohan, the
17-year-old white Bengal tiger and an original member of Tiger Island,
after his condition deteriorated in his battle with kidney disease.
In a statement, a spokeswoman for Dreamworld said Mohan's
condition was common in feline species and incurable and the theme
park's on site vet decided with the tiger's handlers "it was time to
take control of the situation to avoid Mohan suffering".
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Dreamworld's head of life sciences, Al Mucci, said the
staff at the theme park were in mourning but Mohan had enjoyed a good
life.
"It's a sad day, Mohan touched so many Australians who I
think became better human beings with respect for him and other
creatures," he said.
"Our Tiger Island team has been working with Mo since he was a cub and there are many memories they have shared together.
"Tigers in the wild can live up to about 12 years, Mohan was 17 so he has enjoyed a great life here and it was just his time."
Mohan was born in America and brought to the Gold Coast
in 1995 as part of the first group of tigers to live on Tiger Island,
the park's tiger enclosure.
Dreamworld has raised more than $1.4 million for endangered tigers worldwide.
The Dreamworld Wildlife Foundation has become the number
one zoological contributor to 21st Century Tiger, an NGO that supports
projects across the globe committed to anti-poaching, education and
environmental restoration for tigers.
Mohan will be cremated, and his ashes respectfully buried on Tiger Island.
He is survived by his children Rama, Sita, Sultan, and Taj, all of whom remain residents of Tiger Island
Read more: http://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/environment/conservation/rare-white-dreamworld-tiger-dies-at-17-20120621-20pkm.html#ixzz1yOMjbigf
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Steve Bull
and his wife, Allison Ackerman, can't count the number of times
they've been told they make a cute couple. James and Katrina Vong can't
escape being mistaken for brother and sister. Sharon Young says her
resemblance to now-husband Ben Young was so strong, people told her
they should get together.
"We were going to the same church, and there were
people who were very interested to have the two of us date," says
Young, 32, of Cincinnati. "They'd say, 'You would look really good
together and would have cute kids' — before we were dating."
Everybody
knows romantic partners who look as if they belong together. But just
why people are sometimes drawn to look-alikes isn't necessarily
coincidence. It's fodder for research that spans subjects from evolution
to psychology to attraction and mating preferences, to try to explain
why some people may unconsciously seek out partners with similar
features.
"When you have a face that looks more like you,
you tend to trust it more and think it looks more cooperative," says
Tony Little, a research fellow in psychology at the University of
Stirling in Scotland. He is among a small group of researchers studying
the role of the human face in mating choices.
Research
by psychologist R. Chris Fraley of the University of Illinois in
Urbana-Champaign used digitally morphed photos of a subject's face and a
stranger's face; he found that morphed faces were more attractive to
subjects when their own face was included. The experiment was part of a
study he co-wrote in 2010 in the Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin.
"I
do think there's an innate tendency for people, myself included, to be
attracted to people who look like them. There's a familiarness to it,"
says Sharon Young, a college administrator.
A
new dating website called Find Your FaceMate even uses
facial-recognition software to suggest pairings. The official launch is
July 10, says founder Christina Bloom of New York. But although facial
attraction may ignite a relationship, it takes more to keep it going,
she says.
Jessie King, 26, of St. Augustine, Fla., says she and boyfriend Jeff Cagle, 32, are both blond.
"People
like to see similars together," says King, a health educator. "We get
comments like: 'You guys are cute together. You look like a good
couple.' "
Redheads Heather and Tony
Capraro, 41 and 49, of Concord, N.H., both were married before, but
not to look-alikes. "When we're out, people think we're brother and
sister," he says.
Jim Rock, 41, a lawyer from
Holladay, Utah, says his wife, Grace Rock, 36, "has six siblings but
looks more like me than them."
Debra
Lieberman, an evolutionary psychologist at the University of Miami in
Coral Gables, Fla., says Freud was wrong about people being
unconsciously attracted to their opposite-sex parent; humans have
evolved sophisticated inbreeding avoidance systems and develop strong
aversions toward those seen as a close genetic relative.
She believes it's more about "the similarity someone else has to the
template that I built up of what counts as a healthy male. It might come
from what my father looks like and any other males I was around quite
frequently growing up."
James and Katrina
Vong, 31 and 32, are federal employees stationed in Yokosuka, Japan.
He's Cambodian and she's Filipino, but "sometimes we get weird looks
when we hold hands because our resemblance seems more like siblings," he
says.
Bull and Ackerman, 33 and 32, of
Evanston, Ill., met in college; they noticed their resemblance but
dated others, too. "Before Allison," he says, "I dated somebody
4-foot-11 and brunette."
Read On
Minggu, 17 Juni 2012
Nursing and midwifery at WHO
The number of Resolutions on nursing and midwifery adopted by the
WHO World Health Assembly demonstrates the importance WHO Member States
attach to nursing and midwifery services as a means of achieving better
population health outcomes. The most recent resolution, WHA 59.27,
gives WHO the mandate to strengthen the capacity of nursing and
midwifery workforce through the provision of support to Member State on:
- establishing comprehensive programmes for the development of
human resources for health which support recruitment and retention of
sufficient numbers nursing and midwifery workforce,
- involvement of nurses and midwives in the development of their health systems,
- country level implementation of the WHO's strategic directions for nursing and midwifery,
- regular review of the legislation and regulatory processes,
- collection and use of nursing and midwifery core data,
- development and implementation of ethical recruitment of national and international nursing and midwifery workforce.
WHO resolutions on strengthening nursing and midwifery
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Policy documents
-
Final report of the meeting of the Africa Health Workforce Observatory, Arusha, Tanzania, September 2006
The
meeting focussed on developing mechanisms to create up-to-date and
reliable information that enables evidence-based decision making for
human resources for health. This report includes summaries of
presentations and discussions from the initial meeting of the AHWO, a
collaborative network created to share information form partnerships and
promote human resources for health policy development in Africa.
-
Human resources for health: developing policy options for change
pdf, 288kb
Discussion paper intended to be the basis for the development of policy options with countries for countries.
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Human resources and national health systems
pdf, 192kb
Priority
areas for action are HIV/AIDS; incentives and motivation of HRH;
imbalances and migration. Advocacy for HRH issues is a cross-cutting
theme in HRH policy development, as both a priority area and a possible
strategy for action. WHO/EIP/OSD/03.2
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Public service reforms and their impact on health sector personnel. WHO/EIP/OSD/01.2
Intended
to help design, introduce and implement public service and health
sector reforms, taking into account human resource policies. Available
in English, French, Russian and Spanish.
-
Achieving
the right balance: The role of policy-making processes in managing
human resources for health problems. WHO/EIP/OSD/2000.2
pdf, 222kb
Presents a framework for analysing factors affecting the development and implementation of HRH policies and strategies.
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Towards unity for health
Towards
unity for health (TUFH) is an approach to improving the health service
delivery system to better meet people's needs, consistent with the basic
values of quality, equity, relevance and cost-effectiveness. The TUFH
approach aims to bring together all actors in the health sector.
-
Towards unity for health: challenges and opportunities for partnership in development. A working paper. WHO/EIP/OSD/2000.9
pdf, 1.50Mb
This
document explains the TUFH approach and the roles of principal
partners: policy-makers, health managers, health professionals, academic
institutions and communities.
source : http://www.who.int/hrh/documents/policy/en/index.html
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Jumat, 27 April 2012
 Cancer of the Pancreas - Pancreatic Cancer Pancreatic cancer occurs when cells within the pancreas undergo changes that make the cells grow and divide uncontrollably. What is going on in the body? The pancreas is a gland located in the middle part of the upper abdomen. Insulin is produced by the pancreas to help the body regulate blood glucose. The pancreas also produces substances to help the body digest food. When a cell in the pancreas becomes cancerous, it grows into a tumor that destroys the tissue around it. A tumor in the pancreas tends to quickly invade the nearby liver. Eventually, the liver will be affected, and part of it will be destroyed. The cancer can also metastasize, or spread, through the bloodstream to other parts of the body. Pancreatic cancer is usually found late in the disease when it is most likely to be fatal. What are the causes and risks of the disease? Cigarette smoking significantly increases a person’s risk for pancreatic cancer. It is not clear if other factors also increase the risk. The influence of alcohol and caffeine on the development of this cancer is uncertain and controversial. Symptoms & Signs What are the signs and symptoms of the disease?  Most people do not realize they have pancreatic cancer until it has advanced into the liver. At that time, the person will have symptoms related to the destruction of the liver. Unexplained weight loss is the most common symptom. Other symptoms may include: jaundice, or yellowing of the skin and eyes nausea and vomiting pain in the middle to upper part of the abdomen that may spread to the back Diagnosis & Tests How is the disease diagnosed? Diagnosis of pancreatic cancer begins with a medical history and physical exam. The healthcare provider may order tests, including: an abdominal CT scan a biopsy to remove a small piece of tissue for examination CT scans and specialized X-rays to determine if the cancer has spread Prevention & Expectations What can be done to prevent the disease? Individuals who smoke can lower their risk for pancreatic cancer if they quit smoking. Some studies suggest that people who have had a tonsillectomy or various allergies may be at less risk for pancreatic cancer, but more research is needed. What are the long-term effects of the disease? If found early, the cancer can sometimes be controlled for a period of time. However, pancreatic cancer usually causes death. The average survival is 4.1 months. What are the risks to others? Pancreatic cancer is not contagious and poses no risk to others. Treatment & Monitoring What are the treatments for the disease? Treatment varies depending upon the extent of the disease. If the disease is localized and the tumor is small, surgical removal of the tumor may offer long-term control of the cancer. Chemotherapy with radiation therapy may be offered once a small tumor is removed. This may be helpful in slowing the return of the tumor. Most pancreatic cancers are found when the tumors are too large to remove. Large tumors may block the intestines. Surgery may be performed to bypass the blockage and relieve symptoms such as nausea and vomiting. Chemotherapy may be offered to relieve symptoms, such as pain, by shrinking the tumor. Advanced pancreatic cancer is not usually curable. What are the side effects of the treatments? Most people treated with surgery generally heal without difficulty. The effects of radiation therapy are temporary and will resolve after completion. During therapy, the person is likely to experience nausea, skin burning, temporarily lowered blood cell counts, and difficulty swallowing. Medicines will help control the nausea. Chemotherapy given to a person with early-stage disease makes the radiation work better. By itself, the chemotherapy can cause mouth sores, stomach upset, fatigue, hair loss, and increased risk of infections. Radiation may intensify some of the side effects, but this is temporary. Chemotherapy given to treat late-stage cancers is usually well tolerated. It is given to relieve symptoms. What happens after treatment for the disease? Pancreatic cancer is likely to progress, even with treatment. As the cancer progresses, treatments can be given to make the person more comfortable. How is the disease monitored? Someone with pancreatic cancer will have regular visits with the healthcare provider. CT scans will indicate the progress of the disease. When the liver is damaged by cancer, it will begin to fail. Liver function tests will also indicate how well the liver is functioning. As different interventions are used to bring comfort, the person will be monitored closely. Any new or worsening symptoms should be reported to the healthcare provider
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 What Is Cancer?Cancer is actually a group of many related diseases that all have to do with cells. Cells are the very small units that make up all living things, including the human body. There are billions of cells in each person’s body. Cancer happens when cells that are not normal grow and spread very fast. Normal body cells grow and divide and know to stop growing. Over time, they also die. Unlike these normal cells, cancer cells just continue to grow and divide out of control and don’t die when they’re supposed to. Cancer cells usually group or clump together to form tumors (say: too-mers). A growing tumor becomes a lump of cancer cells that can destroy the normal cells around the tumor and damage the body’s healthy tissues. This can make someone very sick. Sometimes cancer cells break away from the original tumor and travel to other areas of the body, where they keep growing and can go on to form new tumors. This is how cancer spreads. The spread of a tumor to a new place in the body is called metastasis (say: meh-tas-tuh-sis). Causes of Cancer You probably know a kid who had chickenpox — maybe even you. But you probably don’t know any kids who’ve had cancer. If you packed a large football stadium with kids, probably only one child in that stadium would have cancer. Doctors aren’t sure why some people get cancer and others don’t. They do know that cancer is not contagious. You can’t catch it from someone else who has it — cancer isn’t caused by germs, like colds or the flu are. So don’t be afraid of other kids — or anyone else — with cancer. You can talk to, play with, and hug someone with cancer. Kids can’t get cancer from anything they do either. Some kids think that a bump on the head causes brain cancer or that bad people get cancer. This isn’t true! Kids don’t do anything wrong to get cancer. But some unhealthy habits, especially cigarette smoking or drinking too much alcohol every day, can make you a lot more likely to get cancer when you become an adult. Finding Out About Cancer It can take a while for a doctor to figure out a kid has cancer. That’s because the symptoms cancer can cause — weight loss, fevers, swollen glands, or feeling overly tired or sick for a while — usually are not caused by cancer. When a kid has these problems, it’s often caused by something less serious, like an infection. With medical testing, the doctor can figure out what’s causing the trouble. If the doctor suspects cancer, he or she can do tests to figure out if that’s the problem. A doctor might order X-rays and blood tests and recommend the person go to see an oncologist (say: on-kah-luh-jist). An oncologist is a doctor who takes care of and treats cancer patients. The oncologist will likely run other tests to find out if someone really has cancer. If so, tests can determine what kind of cancer it is and if it has spread to other parts of the body. Based on the results, the doctor will decide the best way to treat it. One test that an oncologist (or a surgeon) may perform is a biopsy (say: by-op-see). During a biopsy, a piece of tissue is removed from a tumor or a place in the body where cancer is suspected, like the bone marrow. Don’t worry — someone getting this test will get special medicine to keep him or her comfortable during the biopsy. The sample that’s collected will be examined under a microscope for cancer cells. The sooner cancer is found and treatment begins, the better someone’s chances are for a full recovery and cure. Treating Cancer Carefully Cancer is treated with surgery, chemotherapy, or radiation — or sometimes a combination of these treatments. The choice of treatment depends on: the type of cancer someone has (the kind of abnormal cells causing the cancer) the stage of the tumor (meaning how much the cancer has spread within the body, if at all) Surgery is the oldest form of treatment for cancer — 3 out of every 5 people with cancer will have an operation to remove it. During surgery, the doctor tries to take out as many cancer cells as possible. Some healthy cells or tissue may also be removed to make sure that all the cancer is gone. Chemotherapy (say: kee-mo-ther-uh-pee) is the use of anti-cancer medicines (drugs) to treat cancer. These medicines are sometimes taken as a pill, but usually are given through a special intravenous (say: in-truh-vee-nus) line, also called an IV. An IV is a tiny plastic catheter (straw-like tube) that is put into a vein through someone’s skin, usually on the arm. The catheter is attached to a bag that holds the medicine. The medicine flows from the bag into a vein, which puts the medicine into the blood, where it can travel throughout the body and attack cancer cells. Chemotherapy is usually given over a number of weeks to months. Often, a permanent catheter is placed under the skin into a larger blood vessel of the upper chest. This way, a person can easily get several courses of chemotherapy and other medicines through this catheter without having a new IV needle put in. The catheter remains under the skin until all the cancer treatment is completed. Radiation (say: ray-dee-ay-shun) therapy uses high-energy waves, such as X-rays (invisible waves that can pass through most parts of the body), to damage and destroy cancer cells. It can cause tumors to shrink and even go away completely. Radiation therapy is one of the most common treatments for cancer. Many people with cancer find it goes away after receiving radiation treatments. With both chemotherapy and radiation, kids may experience side effects. A side effect is an extra problem that’s caused by the treatment. Radiation and anti-cancer drugs are very good at destroying cancer cells but, unfortunately, they also destroy healthy cells. This can cause problems such as loss of appetite, tiredness, vomiting, or hair loss. With radiation, a person might have red or irritated skin in the area that’s being treated. But all these problems go away and hair grows back after the treatment is over. During the treatment, certain medicines can help a kid feel better. While treatment is still going on, a kid might not be able to attend school or be around crowds of people — the kid needs to rest and avoid getting infections, such as the flu, when he or she already isn’t feeling well. The body may have more trouble fighting off infections because of the cancer or side effects of the treatment. Getting Better Remission (say: ree-mih-shun) is a great word for anyone who has cancer. It means all signs of cancer are gone from the body. After surgery or treatment with radiation or chemotherapy, a doctor will then do tests to see if the cancer is still there. If there are no signs of cancer, then the kid is in remission. Remission is the goal when any kid with cancer goes to the hospital for treatment. Sometimes, this means additional chemotherapy might be needed for a while to keep cancer cells from coming back. And luckily, for many kids, continued remission is the very happy end of their cancer experience
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Asthma and its Types.
chronic inflammatory disorder of the airways that causes recurrent episodes of wheezing, breathlessness, chest tightness, and cough
triad of intermittent and reversible airway obstruction, chronic bronchial inflammation with eosinophils, and
bronchial smooth muscle cell hypertrophy and hyperreactivity
increase in airway responsiveness (bronchospasm)
Types:
extrinsic or atopic: due to IgE and TH2-mediated immune responses to environmental antigens
intrinsic or non-atopic: triggered by non-immune stimuli such as aspirin; viruses; cold; psychological stress; exercise; and inhaled irritants
Drug-Induced Asthma: eg aspirin, probably because it inhibits the cyclooxygenase pathway without affecting the lipoxygenase route
Occupational Asthma: eg, fumes (epoxy resins, plastics), organic and chemical dusts (wood, cotton, platinum), gases (toluene)
Atopic Asthma- Pathogenesis:
Triggering factors: dusts, pollen, animal dander, and foods
Associated with other atopic manifestations like allergic rhinitis, urticaria, or eczema.
hypertrophy of bronchial smooth muscle and deposition of subepithelial collagen; aka airway remodeling
excessive TH2 reaction against environmental antigens.
Cytokines produced by TH2 cells account for most of the features of asthma-IL-4 stimulates IgE production, IL-5 activates eosinophils, and IL-13 stimulates mucus production
Atopic Asthma:
Acute attack consists of
immediate response: Exposure of IgE-coated mast cells to the same antigen causes cross-linking of IgE and release of mediators like Leukotrienes C4, D4,E4, Acetylcholine, Histamine, Prostaglandin D2: which cause bronchoconstriction, increase vascular permeability, and increase mucin secretion
late-phase reaction: Eosinophils are particularly important in the late phase, as they can amplify and sustain the inflammatory response without additional exposure to the triggering antigen by releasing different chemical mediators themselves
status asthmaticus:
may last for hours and even days
hypercapnia, acidosis, and severe hypoxia may be fatal
Maynot respond to bronchodilators
May need artificial ventilatory support under sedation and paralysis
Morphology:
lungs are overdistended because of overinflation, and there may be small areas of atelectasis
occlusion of bronchi and bronchioles by thick, tenacious mucus plugs
M/E:
whorls of shed epithelium (Curschmann spirals)
Numerous eosinophils
Charcot-Leyden crystals (made of eosinophil proteins)
Airway remodeling: includes:
thickening of the basement membrane
Edema and prominence of eosinophils and mast cells
increase in the size of the submucosal glands
Hypertrophy of the bronchial muscle walls
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