Health

Created
Thu, 16/01/2025 - 04:52
Half a century ago, governments around the world ditched their old psychiatric hospitals for something they said would work better. It didn’t. Australia has a poor record in treating the massive mental health problems in the population. More and more money is spent, without achieving any overall improvement in either the mental health of the Continue reading »
Created
Fri, 27/12/2024 - 04:54
In August 2023, nurse Lucy Letby was convicted of the murder of seven babies and attempted murder of six babies in the neonatal unit of a UK National Health Service (NHS) hospital. The Australian media has reported on the current instalment of the saga (viz. a judicial inquiry into conditions at the hospital where Letby Continue reading »
Created
Thu, 12/12/2024 - 04:53
The national report on Australia’s COVID response is long, at 877 pages (depending upon the format), with 4,647 footnotes. But long is not synonymous with comprehensive, and there are significant gaps in the report’s analysis and conclusions. Some of these problems are not of the panel’s making, I suspect, but others, related both to methodology Continue reading »
Created
Wed, 11/12/2024 - 04:52
From the day the war began, 15-year old Ghazal’s life was irreversibly changed. “They destroyed what was inside us,” she said. Her story is a window into the larger tragedy of how war has devastated children, especially those with disabilities. The unimaginable cost of war Ghazal, a 15-year-old girl with cerebral palsy, has lost her Continue reading »
Created
Wed, 27/11/2024 - 04:54
My recent review of the book, Australia’s Pandemic Exceptionalism, by Steven Hamilton and Richard Holden (H&H) highlighted its ‘convincing, frank and honest account’ in just over 200 pages, and encouraged the Health Department in particular to listen to its lessons. The official COVID-19 Response Inquiry Report by Robyn Kruk, Catherine Bennett and Angela Jackson ( Continue reading »
Created
Wed, 27/11/2024 - 04:56
The death of cricketer Phillip Hughes ten years ago to-day (November 27) was one of several hundred workplace fatalities in 2014. The manner of his death raises a key concern for occupational health and safety. Best practice is to remove the source of danger. Second or third best is to minimise its ill-effects. School cricket Continue reading »
Created
Mon, 25/11/2024 - 04:55
A review of Steven Hamilton and Richard Holden, Australia’s Pandemic Exceptionalism: How we crushed the curve but lost the race, UNSW Press I started reading the latest offering by economists Hamilton and Holden on Australia’s COVID-19 experience while I was nursing a deep disappointment that the Albanese Government decided not to establish a Royal Commission Continue reading »