The following health and related news items are sourced from National, State and online news, current affairs and opinion sites from February 2008.  News is archived monthly into the News Archives

National News
State News
International News
Other News & Reports

National News

AIHPS in the news...More

Media Release - National Health and Hospitals Reform Commission announced - 25 February, 2008
click here for media release

Roxon agrees to publish health data - 29 February, 2008
Health Minister Nicola Roxon is to deliver a new era of transparency in public health, agreeing to publish performance data on state hospitals and commonwealth programs...More

Aboriginies big users of public health - 29 February, 2008
Indigenous Australians have 58 per cent more taxpayers' money spent on their health needs than non-indigenous people, but they still die 17 years earlier...More

Roxon knocks back big health fund rises - 28 February, 2008
Health Minister Nicola Roxon has sparked a showdown with private health insurance funds by refusing to rubber-stamp increases that would boost premiums by hundreds of dollars a year...More

New head diagnoses issues - 28 February, 2008
Poor communication between GPs and hospitals, a failure to fix longstanding threats to patient safety and low morale have been singled out as weaknesses of Australia's health system - by the head of the body picked by the government to redraw it...More

Roxon to keep states honest on healthcare - 27 February, 2008
States will be forced to publish performance reports about public hospitals to qualify for extra commonwealth funding under a Rudd Government plan to improve accountability for health spending...More

Reduced emergency trainees 'a concern' - 26 February, 2008
AUSTRALIA'S overburdened emergency departments have lost one in five training places over the past decade, pushing out their chronic labour shortages even further into the future...More

Reform built by looking and listening - 16 February, 2008
Most inquiries end up making worthy recommendations which, like New Year resolutions, become ghosts within a month...More

Urban designers 'encourage obesity' - 18 February, 2008
Towns and cities need to be radically redesigned to help to tackle the obesity epidemic, scientist were told yesterday...More

Research under quality review - 16 February, 2008
A forme senior British health official has been asked to investigate why Australian researchers are struggling to deliver public health projects, despite their potential to improve community well-being and deliver significant savings for government...More

Roxon to correct health underfunding - 13 February, 2008
The amount of money spent on health services to keep people out of hospital slid in 2005-06 because of reductions in Commonwealth contributions...More

$10m boost to indigenous care - 9 February , 2008
A wider focus may see a new indigenous health initiative suceed where other failed...More

Conflicting rules hamper role of nurse practitioners - 9 February, 2008
Nurse practitioners - an advanced type of nurse qualified to diagnose illness and prescribe drugs - are being held back by discordant state and federal laws, new research has found...More

Reforms must avoid familiar pitfalls - 9 February, 2008
Less than three months into its term, the Rudd Labor Government has made its mark on hospital policy in Australia...More

Push for aged care reforms - 8 February, 2008
The federal Government will press the states to stop doctors with financial interests in nursing homes from signing death and cremation certificates for their residents after a coroner yesterday attacked the practice...More

Australians chronically sick but living longer - 7 February, 2008
PEOPLE are living longer, but are more likely to be overweight and suffer diabetes or another chronic disease, a snapshot of Australians' health shows...More

State News

Tensions rise over hospital 'tables' - 29 February, 2008
NSW has directly challenged the Commonwealth's push to publish detailed hospital-by-hospital comparisons as tensions escalated ahead of today's meeting of the nation's health ministers in Sydney..More

States in revolt on health funding - 28 February, 2008
Kevin Rudd's election pledge to end the blame game on health was teetering last night as states split on funding reforms and Tasmanian Premier Paul Lennon accused the Prime Minister of political blackmail..More

Sell-off to fund hospital ditched - 15 February, 2008
Tasmanian Premier Paul Lennon has killed off the idea of selling electricity assets to fund a new $1 billion Hobart hospital, only weeks before unions were tolaunch an anti-privatisation campaign...More

International News

On health care, affordability and comprehensiveness - 22 February, 2008
Health care was the flash point of one of the most contentious exchanges between Senators Barack Obama and Hilary Rodham Clinton on Thursday night, with Mrs Clinton again taking the offensive...More

Number of US Primary Care doctors down - 13 February, 2008
Fewer American doctors are focusing on primary care, but the decline is being covered by physicians from other countries...More

Tobacco 'could kill a billion' by 2100 - 9 February, 2008
NEW YORK: The global "tobacco epidemic" was growing and could claim one billion lives by the end of the century unless governments dramatically stepped up efforts to curb smoking, the World Health Organisation warned yesterday...More

Other Reports

Business Council of Australia (BCA) - Opportunity for Australia to budget for future prosperity
Download via BCA website

AIHW Public Health Expenditure Report - 2005-2006
Download via AIHW website

Labour force statistice - 1986 - 2006 (OECD report)
Download via SourceOECD website