Posts Tagged ‘Death’
Saturday, January 9th, 2010
Tess Livingstone; 9/1/10;
Integrated approaches in Europe to fighting cancer could be adopted here. Cancer patients and their loved ones are anxious and curious about what modern science will have on offer soon, and for them there’s a revelation on the way. More than 100 cancer specialists met in Vienna for their annual conference last month, joined by younger doctors eager to learn. It was about the time the first sod was turned for a new comprehensive cancer centre in Sydney, named after renowned surgeon Chris O’Brien, who died of a brain tumour last year. The co-incidence was appropriate because the specialists who met in the Austrian capital are integrative oncologists, who draw on all the valid therapies available. Some of the therapies discussed and displayed last month look and sound like science fiction. But in the splendour of the palatial Natural History Museum, built on Vienna’s elegant Ringstrasse to house the scientific collection of the Habsburgs in the 19th century, the speakers evoked a strong sense of the possible.
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Tags: Australia, Death, health
Posted in Australia, Health & Children, Human Rights | No Comments »
Saturday, January 9th, 2010
Lesley Russell; 9/1/10
Lesley Russell is the Menzies Foundation fellow at the Menzies Centre for Health Policy, University of Sydney and Australian National University. She is a visiting fellow at the Centre for American Progress in Washington, DC.
Open discussion of end-of-life issues with patients is critical for good health care.Sometimes as an Australian health policy wonk, at present based in Washington, DC, I long for the more considered, low-key level of political debate in Australia. But there are times when I wonder why Australians aren’t more passionate about certain issues and more willing to bring others into the open for discussion. A classic example is advance care planning for end-of-life decisions. Last August a relatively obscure provision in the far-reaching health system reform legislation now before the US Congress that would reimburse doctors for counselling Medicare patients about end-of-life care options came under intense fire from conservative opponents.
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Tags: Australia, Death, health
Posted in Australia, Health & Children, Human Rights | No Comments »
Friday, November 20th, 2009
Mark Henderson; 20/11/09
A cannibalistic ritual in which the brains of dead tribespeople were eaten by their relatives has triggered one of the most striking examples of rapid human evolution on record, scientists have discovered. In the middle of the 20th century, the Fore tribe of the Eastern Highlands province of Papua New Guinea was devastated by a mad cow-like disease called kuru, passed on by mortuary feasts in which the brains of the dead were consumed. Although the practice was banned in the 1950s and kuru has disappeared, it has left an imprint on the tribe’s DNA. Research has now identified a genetic mutation unique to the Fore that protects against the brain disease and which has spread swiftly through the population by natural selection.
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Tags: Death, PNG
Posted in Human Rights, PNG / West Papua | No Comments »
Thursday, September 10th, 2009
Christian Kerr; 10/9/09; (2 Items)
Fewer than half a dozen slabs have been laid for new houses under the government’s $672million Strategic Indigenous Housing and Infrastructure Program, the Northern Territory opposition claims. Indigenous Affairs Minister Jenny Macklin gave the Territory government four months to lift its game at the end of August after a review of the program found $45m had been spent without a house being built. NT opposition infrastructure spokesman Adam Giles said yesterday Territory Housing Department officials told him earlier this week fewer than half a dozen slabs had been poured under the program. “If they want to see tangible outcomes, they’ve got to do it before the wet comes, which is probably before November,” he said. “They really only have a couple of months to get the work done. If they’ve only poured a handful of slabs, it’s hard to see significant amounts of construction activity will be completed.”
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Tags: Aboriginal, Australia, Death, Housing
Posted in Aboriginal, Australia, Health & Children, Human Rights | No Comments »
Thursday, July 23rd, 2009
Danny Rose; 23/7/09
The jury is still out on whether being shot with a Taser stun gun can result in heart problems and possible “sudden death”, according to Australian research. The device which is becoming an increasingly common sight on the weapons belt of the nation’s police remains the subject of conflicting scientific research. “The major concern regarding Taser safety is the possibility of inducing cardiac arrhythmias, interference with implantable pacemakers and sudden death,” writes a group of Queensland-based doctors who reviewed the global pool of research into Tasers. “The majority of the available evidence is limited to case reports, animal models or manufacturer-supported studies conducted on healthy volunteers which might not be applicable to field use.”
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Tags: Aboriginal, Australia, Death, Legal
Posted in Aboriginal, Australia, Health & Children, Human Rights | No Comments »
Saturday, July 18th, 2009
Julia Medew; 18/7/09
Imagine this: your loved one is lying in a hospital bed with no hope of recovery after a car accident. You are devastated but understand that life support will be withdrawn because any further treatment is considered futile. While coming to grips with this information, a doctor gently tells you that although your loved one is not considered brain dead, a new protocol says they can donate their organs when life support is turned off. There are about 2000 people waiting for a donation to prolong their lives, the doctor says, and some families find that donating their loved one’s organs is a positive experience amid the terrible grief of loss. The doctor explains that when your loved one’s heart stops, a period of two minutes will be observed to ensure their heart does not restart. If this hurdle is cleared, your loved one will be taken to surgery as quickly as possible. Speed is required to ensure their organs remain viable because when blood flow stops, organs are no longer receiving oxygen and begin to die.
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Tags: Australia, Death, Human Rights
Posted in Australia, Health & Children, Human Rights | No Comments »
Thursday, June 11th, 2009
Kelsey Munro; 11/6/09
People left distraught by suicide have a higher risk of killing themselves, but there are new programs to help guide them through the darkness. Losing a loved one to suicide is one of the hardest things anyone can go through. Getting help to people shattered by suicide is now being recognised as a crucial part of suicide prevention. “Postvention”, or intervening after the event to support people affected by a suicide, is considered prevention for the next generation since it has become clear that people left behind by suicide are at considerably higher risk of suicide themselves. “It has been shown that people bereaved by suicide are more at risk for various reasons,” says Dr Sheila Clark, a GP from Adelaide with a long-term academic interest in suicide issues. “One is [for immediate relatives in a suicide case] that depression is something that can run in families, and people with depression have a higher risk of suicide.
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Tags: Australia, Death, Grieving
Posted in Australia, Human Rights | No Comments »
Friday, April 3rd, 2009
John Lyons; 3/4/09; (4 Items)
Israel’s new Foreign Minister, Avigdor Lieberman, yesterday unilaterally scrapped a key plank of the Israeli-Palestinian peace process brokered by the US two years ago without telling Washington, the Palestinian Authority or, it appears, his own Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu. The dramatic change to Israeli policy less than a day into the new Government came during what was expected to be a routine meet-and-greet session by Mr Lieberman with his new Foreign Ministry staff in Jerusalem. Before drinking a toast with outgoing foreign minister Tzipi Livni, Mr Lieberman surprised the audience by announcing that Israel was not bound by the Annapolis agreement that then Israeli prime minister Ehud Olmert signed with former US president George W. Bush and President of the Palestinian Authority Mahmoud Abbas at Mr Bush’s country residence in Annapolis, Maryland, in 2007. “It has no validity,” Mr Lieberman told the staff.
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Tags: Death, Gaza, Israel, Peace, Settlements, Terrorism, USA
Posted in Human Rights, Israel & Palestine, USA | No Comments »
Friday, April 3rd, 2009
Padraic Murphy & Nicola Berkovic; 3/4/09; (4 Items)
Australian border protection authorities watched as a boat carrying 50 suspected illegal immigrants, understood to be from Sri Lanka, ran aground trying to traverse the Torres Strait this week. Authorities will not say when the vessel carrying the people was first spotted by aerial surveillance but have confirmed it was being monitored as it ran on to a reef 65 nautical miles northeast of Thursday Island on Wednesday. “The vessel was observed to run aground in the Warrior Reef region about 65 nautical miles to the northeast of Thursday Island and was assisted by officers from the Roebuck Bay to proceed to safe anchorage,” a statement from Home Affairs Minister Bob Debus said.
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Tags: Afghanistan, Australia, Death, Migrants & Refugees, Sri Lanka, Trade
Posted in Afghanistan, Asia, Australia, Human Rights, Refugee & Migrant, Sri Lanka | No Comments »
Monday, March 9th, 2009
Ofri Ilani; 9/3/09; (8 Items)
In July 1848, dozens of women and a few dozen men gathered for the world’s first feminist conference in Seneca Falls, New York. For the first time in human history, a resolution was passed calling for women to be given social and democratic rights equal to those of men. Today, more than 150 years and one feminist revolution later, the position of women in society is inestimably better. But according to a study being published Sunday to coincide with International Women’s Day – which is marked in 61 countries today – mothers still earn much less than any other demographic in the workforce, despite the fact that they make up a greater part of the workforce than any other group. … According to the Central Bureau of Statistics, there were 2,661,000 women living in Israel at the start of 2008. Of them, some 951,000 had children under the age of 17. In 2008, 51.3 percent of women over the age of 15 were part of the workforces compared to 46.3 percent in 1998. That said, the average income of a working women is 64 percent of the male average.
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Tags: Death, Global; Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Jordan, Violence, Womens Rights, Workers, Yemen
Posted in Gender & Marriage, Health & Children, Human Rights, Womens Rights, Workers | No Comments »
Wednesday, February 11th, 2009
Richard Owen; 11/2/09
Eluana Englaro, the comatose woman at the centre of a euthanasia debate that has divided Italy and sparked a constitutional crisis, died yesterday at the age of 38, four days after doctors began removing her life support. “May the Lord forgive them,” a senior Vatican official said. The news of Ms Englaro’s death came as the upper house of parliament began debating emergency legislation rushed out by the centre-right Government of Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi. It would have ordered medical staff to restore all nutrients. She had been in a vegetative state for 17 years after a car accident.
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Tags: Christianity, Death, Human Rights
Posted in Christianity, Human Rights | No Comments »
Saturday, January 17th, 2009
Bryan Appleyard 17/1/09;
You are dying. Twenty seconds ago your heart and breathing stopped and your pupils became fixed and dilated. Your brain cells are in a state of panic, trying every trick they know to get hold of oxygen and glucose. An electroencephalogram (EEG) would show no electrical activity in your cortex, the thin outer layer of your brain. You have flatlined. As usual, a young, inexperienced doctor is first on the scene. They’re fitter and faster. There’s only time to confirm you’re not breathing before starting 30 chest compressions followed by two breaths into your mouth. A cart arrives with a defibrillator, the electric-shock machine, as do a few older, less fit doctors. The machine is not, sadly, one of the sexy, telegenic ones with paddles and George Clooney shouting “Clear!”
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Tags: Death, Global, health
Posted in Health & Children, Human Rights | No Comments »
Friday, October 24th, 2008
Julia Medew; 24/10/08
The head of the federal health department is worried a Melbourne doctor’s comments that not all organ donors are dead when their organs are removed will undermine efforts to boost Australia’s donation rate. Associate Professor James Tibballs, an intensive care specialist at the Royal Children’s Hospital, told The Age this week that doctors could not be sure all brain function or blood circulation had ceased irreversibly when organs were taken. He also called for brain death tests to be strengthened and for Australians to be fully informed of how organs are retrieved to ensure informed consent.
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Tags: Australia, Death, Organ Donation
Posted in Australia, Health & Children, Human Rights | No Comments »
Monday, September 22nd, 2008
John Chesterman; 22/9/08
The Victorian Upper House voted this month to reject legislation that would have enabled terminally ill patients to ingest a drug to end their lives. The Legislative Council chose wisely. There is no doubt that those supporting the bill did so with the best of intentions. Many of them have seen loved ones die painful deaths, and have felt immense frustration at their inability to do anything but watch.
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Tags: Australia, Death
Posted in Uncategorized | No Comments »
