The ease with which the protections of Australians from healthcare fraud can be breached can only be described as disgraceful, writes John Dwyer.
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Category: Health
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Patient beware: many a medical practitioner is naught but a dodgy doctor
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Front-line nurses, burnt-out or on the brink.
Pre-Covid, the healthcare system was already struggling. It’s time to invest in primary care and best practices to take that weight off nurses. (more…)
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Rich countries blamed for ‘avoidable’ new Covid variant
‘Allowing new variants to emerge and spread, 13 months into the vaccine era, is a policy choice by the rich world.’
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Omicron emerged because rich countries neglected global public health
Omicron shows that without global vaccine equity, COVID-19 will continue to mutate and spread around the world.
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Omicron is fuelled by our failure to mount a coordinated global response
The new Omicron coronavirus variant is a wakeup call on the need to fully vaccinate the world’s poorest nations, and our own children.
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Aged care advisory council needs strong nursing voices
Gobsmackingly, the new National Aged Care Advisory Council has been formed without any nursing groups represented.
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Biden urged to fight big pharma’s vaccine greed at key WTO meeting
Joe Biden must make sure those at WTO talks next week endorse a plan to waive COVID-19 vaccine patents to help end the pandemic.
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‘Obscene’: Pfizer, BioNTech, and Moderna rake in $5.4 million an hour
A few companies are making huge profits off COVID-19 vaccines while just 2 per cent of people in low-income countries have been fully vaccinated.
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Vaccination plus: A safe ticket to the great Aussie summer
For true freedom this summer, we’ll need more than vaccinations alone — public health safety is always a story of multiples.
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Our new Covid reality leaves the vulnerable living in fear
While many celebrate the economy opening up, it threatens to have a damaging impact on Aboriginal communities and on part-time and casual workers. (more…)
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Why Australia should be helping the least vaccinated nations like PNG
While Australia embarks on third booster shots, the vaccination rate in PNG is less than 2 per cent. What does that say about being a good neighbour?
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From zero to acceptable risk: funeral rites for Covid zero
The ambitious target of eradication has been eradicated. In its place, a small target strategy. Authorities are grappling with the new reality.
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After lockdown: can marvellous Melbourne ever be the same?
A sense of achievement is mixed with a sense of utter loss. Australia’s most liveable city has emerged proud and unbowed from its sixth lockdown, but signs of the damage are not hard to find. (more…)
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EU, UK under fire for opposing a vaccine patent waiver due to Big Pharma lobbying
Rich nations’ refusal to take on the pharmaceutical industry could ‘prolong the pandemic indefinitely’, warned one campaigner.
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Will NSW’s opening up to international travel lead to internal borders closing down?
Returning travellers need clearer information on internal and international movement.
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What really happened — not just in Wuhan — to spark the COVID-19 pandemic
After months of advance publicity, book extracts and a Sky News documentary, most of us already know where Sharri Markson and News Corp believe the COVID-19 pandemic began.
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Mishandling the COVID-19 pandemic the Javanese way
On the surface, it looks like Indonesia has the pandemic under control — a summery success story for the world’s fourth-most populous country. In truth, there’s a more wintery tale to tell.
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In a post-Covid Australia, telehealth underpins the future for healthcare
Given the success of telehealth during the COVID-19 pandemic for patients and health case workers, it’s about time it was made permanent in Australia.
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A year and 3.5 million deaths later, ‘greed is triumphing over human life’ in vaccine fight
‘How many more people must die needlessly before countries do the right thing and support the lifting of patent restrictions, so COVID-19 vaccines, tests, and treatments can be produced worldwide?’
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For 21st century primary health care, we need bold and brave leadership
It’s long past time to implement primary care reforms — but whose voices are being heard in the discussion?
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After the pandemic, virtual healthcare is the future
The COVID-19 pandemic has shifted perceptions of the health system. With virtual healthcare, some acute conditions can be treated at home.
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Three Catholic Archbishops: A viral infection
One would hope that, at a time of crisis, archbishops would be careful not to lend their authority in a way that could be construed as supporting anti-vaccination and anti-lockdown sentiments.
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How the Doherty model has been politically weaponised.
Political agendas have become more important than health policy in our current response to the COVID-19 pandemic.
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The Clayton’s but secret Covid national plan
Those hoping for clarification on the national COVID-19 plan from last week’s national cabinet meeting will be disappointed. The main outcome from the meeting was a statement about the importance of its discussions and documents remaining “cabinet in confidence”.
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Dealing with community despair in the time of Covid
As the public health measures work to suppress the pandemic, community relations and connections are at risk. A sense of community, togetherness and mutual support is needed, now and in the long-term.
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How nurse practitioners have been shut out of the vaccine rollout
Privately practising nurse practitioners offer the best solution for vaccinated marginalised populations, but they have been excluded from access to Commonwealth emergency pandemic vaccines.
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Covid on the inside: A Sydney doctor’s perspective. I can face tomorrow
Caring for COVID-19 patients in a Sydney hospital through the city’s latest outbreak, a doctor reflects on the impact the pandemic is having on our healthcare system and the people who work in it.
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Genocide by big pharma. Millions will die
Big pharma is fiercely opposing measures to scale up production and distribution of COVID-19 vaccines around the world. This corporate genocide must be named. Stop protecting crooks.
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Three unjustified problems with the Queensland euthanasia bill
The Queensland Voluntary Assisted Dying Bill goes too far in trampling on the rights of those who want nothing to do with it in the last stages of their own life or in their long term relationships with their patients and residents. (more…)
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‘Everybody did it’: wealthy doctors’ lobbies ride JobKeeper gravy train
JobKeeper for dentists? Fair enough. But more public subsidies for doctors’ lobby groups? Callum Foote reports on Australia’s medical colleges refusing to pay back millions in JobKeeper payments.