Depending on your choice of cliche the aged care portfolio may be seen as a minefield, a poisoned chalice or a suicide mission – a high risk activity best avoided. (more…)
Category: Health
-
What about the security companies? Don’t they have corporate ethical responsibility?
We are in stage 4 of the lock-down in Melbourne and that has great implications for personal and social life as well as the economy. As a result of the lock-down, listeners have contacted radio stations, approving of it because it would finally bring about the end of the spreading of Covid-19. (more…)
-
The inconsistent responses to Covid-19
The bag of Covid-19 policy responses bulges with inconsistencies. The first people to admit they knew the least about this virus strain were epidemiologists who knew the most. But how frustrating when politicians shift positions in pretence they know (anything).
-
Harmful research misconduct, is our research integrity framework adequate?
Could harmful research misconduct happen in Australia? What steps are followed if an allegation of research misconduct is made in Australia? Is our system sufficiently robust to deal with allegations impartially and justly? (more…)
-
Being old and disabled in the time of COVID
The Prime Minister has apologised for the number of deaths in residential aged care during the COVID disaster. But he hasn’t apologised for the large number of people in residential aged care who don’t need to be there.
-
‘Rage against the dying of the light’ in the way we treat elderly people
The alienation of elderly people from social life is abundantly evident in the impact of coronavirus on society as it exploits the vulnerable and defenceless.
-
The (failing) aged care system we have in 2020 operates exactly as it was designed to – Part 2
The starting point for a fit-for-purpose, 21st-century aged care system is public recognition that we can no longer continue to simply subcontract out our public duty of care for frail and vulnerable people. Older Australians deserve so much better. (more…)
-
The (failing) aged care system we have in 2020 operates exactly as it was designed to – Part 1
Outsourcing the government’s duty of care for older Australians has been at the core of structural failings in aged care for the last two decades. Covid-19 is just the latest in a long string of failures.
-
The Ruby Princess fiasco, deaths and damage.
This was not just another Covid cluster – it was a full on Covid cluster fuck, brought to you in glorious 20-20 hindsight and quadrophonic dodging and denial. (more…)
-
The Coronavirus does discriminate
An advertising campaign in Victoria seeks to convince young people that the Coronavirus is a threat to young and old. But the most startling fact is that as of the time of writing no-one under 30 in Australia has died from the virus. (more…)
-
War and Pandemic Journalism: the Truth Can Disappear Fast (Counter Punch August 7, 2020)
The struggle against Covid-19 has often been compared to fighting a war. Much of this rhetoric is bombast, but the similarities between the struggle against the virus and against human enemies are real enough.
-
A pandemic letter from an Aussie in the USA (PURSUIT August 14, 2020)
How did one the world’s most inequitable health care systems cope with COVID-19? The short answer is that it provides the starkest of warnings
-
Why is Australia’s public health data hidden?
Against the backdrop of Melbourne’s Stage 4 Restrictions, Victoria’s State of Disaster and diminishing personal freedom in other parts of Australia, we need to have a discussion about the lack of public health data in Australia.
-
What went wrong with Aged Care?
The definite turning point in the quality and the humanity of Australia’s care of the elderly was the Aged Care Bill 1997 (Cth), introduced as part of the Howard Government’s 1996 Budget measures. It was a huge failure. (more…)
-
To mask or not to mask? Is that the question?
The debate about wearing masks during the COVID-19 pandemic has fluctuated, but there now seems to be consensus that it is safer for the public to wear masks to avoid or at least reduce community transmission. (more…)
-
COVID-19 lays bare the US’s deep problems, with some help from Trump
With the COVID-19 pandemic laying waste to the country, and President Trump’s chances of re-election fading, the United States is at last beginning to look more deeply into its problems.
-
Nurses, COVID-19 and the risks they run for us.
Nurses and other health care workers (HCWs) around the world are serving us well and at great risk to themselves. Many are exhausted but are carrying on. Still others are re-entering the workforce to assist in enabling surge capacity, so there is no shortage of goodwill and altruism. (more…)
-
Fast Tracking a National Care Service
We face the immediate future burdened with an out-of-hospital care workforce that is poorly paid, insufficiently skilled and understaffed to meet the caring needs of vulnerable people throughout the life span from infancy and childhood to old age.
-
Aged care homes: the weakest COVID-19 link
A pandemic throws a perfect mirror onto a society and shines a light on every crack. There is no better illustration of this than the light that COVID-19 is throwing on aged care homes in Australia and internationally. (more…)
-
The hindering of our efforts to control the spread of Covid-19
We face social fatigue and misconceptions about social distancing; irresponsible public behaviour; and a widespread lack of appreciation of the long-term clinical consequences of an encounter with this virus.
-
Caring for older Australians
Covid has blown the cover on much of what we need to maintain credibility as a humane nation. Care of older Australians is of priority concern. (more…)
-
The powerless suffer and the powerful carry on amid Covid-19
Covid-19 presents us with an opportunity. A more equal society, more resilient to the challenges ahead, or a society ruled by power imbalances, struggling to cope with both natural and man-made disasters. (more…)
-
The Power of Attorney and abuse of the elderly
Australia has a long way to go and COVID is lifting the scab revealing how neglect and absolute indifference have exposed these communities of older people to an end of life nightmare. (more…)
-
Watching Fox News in the US may kill you
Recent US studies demonstrate that watching Murdoch’s US Fox News increases the likelihood of you believing what’s not true about COVID-19 and – if acting on it – possibly dying. (more…)
-
The cost of outsourcing public health services
The current Victorian Hotel Quarantine Inquiry headed by the Honourable Justice Jennifer Coate AO is putting two things on trial – one predictable media fodder and the other at the root of decades of neo-liberal outsourcing and privatisation. (more…)
-
Domestic violence in the pandemic. Anti terrorism is a tried and successful diversion
The above is the headline in a story in the SMH on 13 July 2020. It illustrates once again how vested interests supported by our media give lip service about the tragedy of domestic violence but quickly forget it.But the anti terrorism scam goes on and on. (more…)
-
In this pandemic, children will suffer far more than we realise
We are told, quite correctly, that one of the few bright spots of the Covid-19 pandemic is that children are at significantly lower risk of being infected, and less likely to have a severe illness should they become infected. But this is only part of the story. (more…)
-
The Therapeutic Goods Administration must do better.
Almost 2 years after complaints about numerous hangover products were submitted to the TGA they have finally published one outcome. The TGA agreed there was insufficient evidence to support claims related to hangover relief. (more…)
-
Where politics ‘trumps’ public health
We are six months into the Covid-19 (C19) pandemic. A year ago, we would have expected the United States to play a major leadership role in countering any pandemic. Instead, is has suffered at least 2,700,000 infections, resulting in 128,000 deaths . (more…)
-
Australia’s health care after coronavirus – is there a silver lining to the pandemic?
What have we learned from the coronavirus pandemic that can inform and drive reforms to Australia’s health care system?