Wait grows for elective surgery as hospitals struggle - 31 January, 2007
Patients are waiting longer for elective surgery, despite a significant increase in government spending on public hosptials...More
Potholes in the road to policy - 27 January, 2007
Australia sets its standards by the best in America, yet in healthcare the US faces challenges that we have avoided here. Nevertheless, there is much for us to learn by observing the progress of healthcare in the US...More
Revamp of doctor watchdog urged - 25 January, 2007
A former top Medicare bureaucrat has denounced the effectiveness of the federal agency that investigates doctors suspected of overcharging, saying it barely scratches the surface of the problem and is too controlled by medical groups...More
Cervical jabs for the boys - 24 January, 2007
Vaccinating boys against cervical cancer would significantly reduce the spread of the disease...More
Workforce participation rates: how does Australia compare? 23 January, 2007
This paper examines the comparability of international workforce participation rates and seeks to better understand the magnitude of the gap between Australia's workforce participation rates and those of other OECD countries...More
Tycoons outback health rescue - 23 January, 2007
The billion-dollar foundation set up by Asia's richest man, Li Ka-Shing, has made its first donation in Australia, rescuing a program targeting obesity in remote Aboriginal and non-indigenous communities in South Australia...More
Policing Medicare - 20 January, 2007
Moves to crack down on sub-standard doctors are being hamstrung by challenges in the courts...More
Plan to boost bulk-billing with cash rewards for GPs- 18 January, 2007
GENERAL practitioners and specialists would be paid higher Medicare rebates if they agreed to bulk-bill patients, under a new Labor policy...More
Private hospitals essential for training says medical deans - 17 January, 2007
Future doctors will be less qualified than those of the past unless the private sector is given a role teaching medicine, educators have warned...More
Health fears as GP advice falls 25pc - 17 January, 2007
The number of consultations during which GPs offer advice on topics such as nutrition, weight, exercise and medical treatments has plunged by 25 per cent in a single year...More
Private hospitals to train medicos under Labor - 16 January, 2007
Private hospitals would be contracted to provide clinical training for medical and nursing students under a Labor plan to tackle the nation's medical workforce shortage...More
Ethics takes front seat in research - 13 January, 2007
Scientists are hoping ethics approval processes might soon be simplified...More
Managing sickies a 24-hour job - 13 January, 2007
Employers are farming out the handling of sick calls to nurse-run hotlines, in a bid to cut absenteeism costing billions every year...More
Education good enough to produce world-class doctors - 13 January, 2007
The primary mission of education programs in Australia's medical schools is to prepare graduating doctors for internship in our hospitals and to provide them with the knowledge and skills to engage in postgraduate training in whatever field in medicine they choose...More
Nick Coatsworth: Better medicine for all in single-source funding - 10 January, 2007
Opinion: A national approach is needed to cure Australia's ailing health system...More
No plan to change Medicare surcharge - Abbott - 9 January, 2007
The Federal Government says it has no plans to change its Medicare levy policy, with Health Minister Tony Abbott urging people to take out private health insurance if they want to avoid paying the surcharge...More
Aussies among 'longest living' - 9 January, 2007
Australia may be the "lucky country" but its indigenous people are not so fortunate when it comes to longevity...More
Caffeine cola risk for kids - 9 January, 2007
Governments should ban the sale of caffeinated cola drinks to children, according to a Melbourne scientist...More
Healthy active campaigns make an impact - 8 January, 2007
AHA - Health Minister Tony Abbott said new research reveals that the Commonwealth Government's 'Get Moving' physical activity and 'Go for 2&5' fruit and vegetable advertising campaigns have made a positive impact...More
Kids on top of wholesome life - 8 January, 2007
Children know more about good exercise and eating habits than their parents, sparking calls for grown-ups to lift their game on obesity...More
Sun care out of fashion - 7 January, 2007
Young Australians are ignoring the message behind sun awareness campaigns in favour of fashion and putting themselves at risk of skin cancer...More
Smokers risk ban on surgery - 6 January, 2007
Doctors were justified in denying surgery to smokers because of their higher risk of post-operative infection, a top doctor says, arguing that resources were often better spent on non-smokers...More
Med students behind on anatomy - 6 January, 2007
Anatomy tuition in medical schools has been cut back so much trainee physiotherapists and chiropractors spend a far greater proportion of their courses studying how the body works than do future doctors...More
Mental program to stay - 4 January, 2007
Labor will retain the Howard Government's mental health policy, allowing psychologists and GPs to bill for counselling sessions under Medicare, if it wins this year's federal election...More
Parents warned on drinks for teens - 4 January, 2007
Parents who allow their children small amounts of alcohol in an attempt to instil safe drinking habits may be setting them on the path to becoming binge drinkers...More
Health crisis exposed under new scheme - 3 January, 2007
The extent of Australia's mental health crisis has become clear with psychologists and GPs billing more than 45,000 consultations in the first month of a scheme that gives them the right to provide counselling under Medicare...More
Cost blowout fear forced health levy - 1 January 2007
Fears of an explosion in the cost of Medibank drove the Fraser government to introduce a 2.5 per cent healthcare levy on taxpayers to encourage high-income earners to buy private health insurance cover...More
State/Territory News
Aussies in dark over dosage - 14 January, 2007 (Qld)
Mixed messages about skin cancer and vitamin D deficiency have left Australians confused about how long to spend in the sun, cancer specialists have warned...More
Debnam announces $77m school program - 11 January, 2007 (NSW)
NSW Opposition Leader Peter Debnam kayaked 8km across Sydney Harbour today to announce a $77 million health and fitness program for schools and sporting clubs...More
Uni offers go out - 10 January, 2007 (Qld)
Demand in Queensland for university courses in health, engineering and architecture has surged...More
Nursing cavalry arrives - 5 January, 2007 (Qld)
The first of more than 70 nurses from the English town of Stoke-on-Trent have reported for work in tropical north Queensland...More
Charity in health tilt - 1 January, 2007 (Qld)
A charity partly funded by the State Government could be appointed to manage public elective surgery in private hospitals...More
Produce prices hit hard - 1 January, 2007 (Qld)
Families living in Queensland's most isolated areas pay about $114 a fortnight more to meet basic food needs than their Brisbane counterparts, a new study has found...More
International
News
Dentists 'turning away patients' - 31 January, 2007 (UK)
Dentists are turning away patients because local health chiefs are running out of funds, dental leaders say...More
Law shifts NIH balance of power - 31 January, 2007 (US)
Patient groups fear for their research as funds are pooled...More
'Too many' NHS staff suspensions - 31 January, 2007 (UK)
Scottish health boards have been accused of suspending too many members of staff...More
Migrating birds raise fears of new flu outbreak - 30 January, 2007
Japan's third case in three weeks of avian flu infecting chicken farms has heightened concerns about the risk of a major outbreak of the disease caused by migrating birds from the north Asian mainland...More
EU health boss seeks smoking ban in public places - 30 January, 2007 (Reuters)
Brussels - The European Union's health chief will seek a 'comprehensive ban' on smoking in public places across the group's 27 countries, he said on Tuesday...More
Bush directive increases sway on regulation - 30 January, 2007 (US)
President Bush has signed a directive that gives the White House much greater control over the rules and policy statements that the government develops to protect public health, safety, the environment, civil rights and privacy...More
The importance of knowing what the doctor is talking about - 30 January, 2007 (US)
How often have you left a doctor's office wondering just what you were told about your health...More
Bonus pay by Medicare lifts quality - 25 January, 2007 (US)
Paying a hospital to do the right thing is a lot harder than it looks...More
With health care topic A, some sketches for solution - 25 January, 2007 (US)
Start with the children and work up from there. For corporate America and Washington policy experts, that seems to be the emerging consensus about how to begin tackling the problem of the 47 million people in this country without health insurance: Start with the more than 8 million uninsured children...More
Bush unveils health plan tied to tax deduction - 24 January, 2007 (US)
President's Bush's State of the Union health care proposal couples an old idea, capping tax-free benefits for health care, with a new one: a standard deduction for all who buy health insurance...More
New WHO chief calls meeting on polio - 22 January, 2007 (APW)
The new head of the World Health Organization said Monday she will hold an urgent meeting of leaders in the battle against polio to determine whether to push ahead toward the elusive goal of eradicating the disease...More
Doctor group joins call for healthcare overhaul - 22 January, 2007 (US)
General practitioners added their voices on Monday to a growing call for health care reform in the United States with a proposal to completely change the way patients and their doctors interact...More
Millions of kids avoid measles - 20 January, 2007 (UK)
LONDON: Global measles deaths have dropped by 60 per cent, health authorities announced in a report yesterday, with one senior official calling it a "historic victory" for public health...More
Groups offer health plan for coverage of uninsured - 19 January, 2007 (US)
A broad coalition of business and consumer groups, doctors, hospitals and drug companies laid out a major proposal on Thursday to provide health coverage to more than half of the nation’s 47 million uninsured by expanding federal benefit programs and offering new tax credits to individuals and families...More
Second drop in cancer deaths could point to a trend, Researchers say - 18 January, 2007 (US)
The number of cancer deaths in the United States has dropped for the second year in a row, the American Cancer Society reported yesterday. The finding suggests that the small drop reported last year — the first in more than 70 years — was real, possibly the start of a continuing decrease and not merely a statistical fluke, researchers said...More
The federalist prescription - 18 January, 2007
The Economist - The Republican in charge of the country's most populous state, where 6.5m people, almost one resident in five, lack medical insurance, said he wants to introduce universal health-care coverage...More
A new concensus on universal health care - 17 January, 2007 (US)
On the surface, it looked to be just another Washinton news conference, part of the white noise of the political and policy process...More
Japan confims bird flu death - 16 January, 2007
Officials in Japan have confirmed that a recent outbreak of bird flu at a poultry farm was the deadly H5N1 strain of the virus...More
'Pay for surgery' option dropped - 16 January, 2007 (UK)
Plans to offer NHS patients the option of paying for their surgery to avoid waiting lists have been abandoned...More
£20m to plug health research gap - 13 January, 2007 (UK)
Research to prevent serious illness will be boosted by a £20m fund to encourage public health projects...More
Two die of bird flu in Indonesia - 13 January, 2007 (UK/AAP)
Two women in Indonesia have died after contracting bird flu, health officials have confirmed, raising the country's total number of human deaths to 61...More
Patients can pay for NHS surgery - 12 January, 2007 (UK)
A financially-struggling hospital is offering patients the chance to pay up to £6,000 to avoid waiting for surgery...More
New program to direct healthier food purchases - 11 January, 2007 (US)
Learning how to eat according to the US Food Guide Pyramid may soon get a little easier: Grocery manufacturers and food product makers today unveiled a new national campaign in stores and elsewhere to help consumer follow the government's healthy diet advice...More
MRSA target 'likely to be missed' - 11 January, 2007 (UK)
The NHS is not on track to meet its MRSA target and perhaps never will, a leaked government memo says...More
Many excluded from social care - 10 January, 2007 (UK)
Elderly and disabled people are increasingly relying on family and friends to care for them, inspectors have warned...More
Taking primary care to the streets - 10 January, 2007 (UK)
A new BBC series follows family doctors as they take to the streets to offer primary care to patients on their home ground...More
Bird flu kills Indonesian boy, infects man in China - 10 January, 2007
Bloomberg - Bird flu killed a 14-year-old boy in Indonesia, and China reported its first human case in five months as the World Bank warned countries to prepare for a potential deadly global outbreak...More
Poor hospital practices blamed for 2003 SARS Epidemic in Toronto - 10 January, 2007 (Canada)
A provincial commission investigating the SARS outbreak in 2003 reported Tuesday that poor hospital infection-control procedures led to the epidemic in the Toronto area that killed 44 people...More
Fatal cancer risk for obese - 10 January, 2007 (US)
NEW YORK: Excess weight may not raise a man's risk of developing prostate cancer, but it may make him more likely to die of the disease...More
Obesity of China's kids stuns officials - 9 January, 2007 (China)
China is super-sizing its children as fast as its economy, prompting fears of an American-style obesity crisis here...More
California pland for health care would cover all - 9 January, 2007 (US)
Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger on Monday proposed extending health care coverage to all of California’s 36 million residents as part of a sweeping package of changes to the state’s huge, troubled health care system...More
In '05, Medical Bills grew at the slowest pace in 6 years - 8 January, 2007 (US)
Spending on health care in the United States increased in 2005 at the slowest pace in six years, mostly because of much slower growth in spending on prescription drugs, the government reported Monday...More
In obesity fight, many fear a note from school - 8 January, 2007 (US)
The practice of reporting students’ body mass scores to parents originated a few years ago as just one tactic in a war on childhood obesity that would be fought with fresh, low-fat cafeteria offerings and expanded physical education...More
Study: Tween girls at risk for fatness - 8 January, 2007 (US)
As if being a tween is not hard enough, scientists now call the years between 9 and 12 a time when girls are especially at risk of getting fat...More
States to expand health coverage - 8 January, 2007 (US)
States are planning large expansions in health care coverage this year in an aggressive and potentially expensive attempt to reduce the ranks of the 42.4 million Americans who are uninsured...More
New U.N Health Chief sets her priorities - 5 January, 2007 (US)
Dr. Margaret F. C. Chan took office yesterday as the World Health Organization’s director general, saying her two chief goals are to improve the health of Africans and of women throughout the world...More
Use of Quality Incentives Inches Up, but Productivity Still Dominates - January, 2007
The proportion of physicians in group practice whose compensation is based in part on quality measures increased from 17.6 percent in 2000-01 to 20.2 percent in 2004-05, according to a new national study from the Center for Studying Health System Change (HSC)...More
Shortage of NHS staff reported - 4 January, 2007 (UK)
There will be a shortage of GPs and nurses in four years' time, but the NHS will have to shed hospital doctors, leaked government documents show...More
Health Care on the Hill- Democrats set the Agenda - 4 January, 2007 (US)
NEJM - Democratic legislators, energized by their new (if slim) majorities in the 110th Congress, now face the daunting challenge of enacting an ambitious policy agenda while fulfilling their pledge to restore "pay-as-you-go" rules to new legislation...More
Cancer's unrecognised toll: time lost - 3 January, 2007 (US)
The hours spent sitting in doctors' waiting rooms, in line for the CT scan, watching chemotherapy drip into veins: Battling cancer steals a lot of time -- at least $2.3 billion worth for patients in the first year of treatment alone...More
A surprising secret to long life - stay in school - 3 January, 2007 (US)
James Smith, a health economist at the RAND Corporation, has heard a variety of hypotheses about what it takes to live a long life — money, lack of stress, a loving family, lots of friends. But he has been a skeptic...More
Taxing addiction: China confronts price of its cigarette habit - 3 January, 2007 (US)
Wall Street Journal - Smoking "is our biggest public health problem. It should be our first priority", says Yan Gonghuan, deputy director of China's Center for Disease Control and Prevention...More
The challenge of global health - 3 January, 2007 (US)
Health philanthropy that just five years ago witnessed "large" donations in the tens of millions now routinely hears of awards exceeding $200 million, targeting single projects...More
What's making us sick is an epidemic of diagnoses - 2 January, 2007 (US)
For most Americans, the biggest health threat is not avian flu, West Nile or mad cow disease. It’s our health-care system...More
Hong Kong bans smoking - 1 January, 2007 (AFP)
Hong Kong has become a mostly smoke-free city, with a ban on lighting up inside restaurants, workplaces, schools, karaoke lounges and public areas coming into force...More
Cigarette-buying age set to rise - 1 January, 2007 (UK)
The government is to raise the legal minimum age at which tobacco can be bought in England and Wales from 16 to 18 years from October...More
Other News
Evidence based medicine: increasing, not dictating, choice (BMJ)
Medical milestones - available for download
Meeting Australians ageing challenge: the importance of women's workforce participation - 16 January, 2007 (Access Economics)
Full text available for download
Obesity, law, and personal responsibility: conference report (also available MJA) - 16, January, 2007
A recent conference raised issues about the environment in which lifestyle choices are made...Full text available for download
Long-term care financing project - Georgetown (US) January 2007
Fact sheets now available
Health Care Spending in the United States and OECD Countries - Kaiser report (US)
Click here to access report
The Blame Game: Report on the inquiry into health funding
House of Representatives Standing Committee on Health and Ageing report now available
Retiree Health Benefits Examined - Kaiser report (US)
Click here to download the full report
NHMRC Funding announced - 2007
For more information visit the NHMRC website
