Interventions such as formal support systems are needed for Australia’s exhausted, overwhelmed mental health nurses. (more…)
Category: Health
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What should Australian Governments do about ‘mental health’?
Along with climate change and ecological damage, Australians face an equally important challenge of exposure to stressful social conditions leading to declining psychological health for millions. (more…)
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How AI-based eye scans can detect high blood sugar, heart disease
Retinal scans, aided by artificial intelligence, may soon offer doctors a simple, non-invasive way to detect several medical conditions. (more…)
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Interview that described the hell Gaza has become
I am sure I am not the only person who stopped what she was doing early on Tuesday morning to listen the most anguished interview I have ever heard on radio. (more…)
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Government is planning hardship for older Australians living at home
Aged care has again been in the media for all the wrong reasons. Two failures are attracting particular attention. (more…)
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1 in 3 Australians in their late 60s are still working, new HILDA survey shows
Australia has seen a dramatic transformation of retirement over the past 20 years, with more Australians delaying retirement than ever before, reshaping expectations for later life. (more…)
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Fewer friends, more time stress: the essential charts from this year’s HILDA survey
Every year, one of Australia’s biggest longitudinal surveys provides a range of insights on how the nation is changing. (more…)
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Five ways to keep kids safe in Australia’s health system
One in five Australians is a child, but too often kids’ healthcare is inconsistent, fragmented, and not designed with their needs front and centre. (more…)
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This report measures our national well-being across five key areas. Health trends are not improving
In 2023, Treasurer Jim Chalmers announced the government would measure what matters to the well-being of Australians as a complement to the traditional economic measures in the national accounts. (more…)
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Climate code blue: Why hospitals must lead the healing of our planet
Hospitals must lead – not only for better patient outcomes, but for the healing of our planet. The next chapter in healthcare leadership will be written by those who can drive change for both. (more…)
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Volunteer doctors describe how Israeli troops ‘deliberately targeted’ Gaza children
“How is it possible that, in this small hospital, four children are lying here with gunshot wounds to the head – all admitted within the past 48 hours?” said one US trauma surgeon. (more…)
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The long-term damaging effects of COVID
Just as the Great Plague ravaged Europe and changed the course of history, we face a different society and future because of the COVID pandemic. Differing responses to dealing with the virus reveal gaping holes in the social fabric. (more…)
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Aged care crises continue under Labor
It has been four years since the final report of the Royal Commission into Aged Care Quality and Safety was tabled in federal parliament. (more…)
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Health workers in the US are demanding the resignation of Robert Kennedy Jr
When I worked in the US, I visited the Centre for Disease Control on a number of occasions. The faculty members were extraordinarily competent and influential, because of the universal and deserved respect for the CDC. (more…)
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As Florida ends all childhood vaccine mandates, doctors fear preventable diseases will ‘come roaring back’
“Florida’s decision to erase school vaccine requirements will cause preventable illness and death,” said one immunologist. “Not just for kids in Florida, for whole communities, of all ages, across the country.” (more…)
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The next pandemic is ‘an epidemiological certainty’
The next pandemic disease outbreak is already on the way. Only its identity remains a surprise. (more…)
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Why the NDIS inevitably went pear-shaped!
I was a part of the old (underfunded, unfair, fragmented, and inefficient, according to the Productivity Commission) state-run system. (more…)
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Lowering tobacco tax to make illegal tobacco sales ‘disappear overnight’: At last we have a proposed figure and it’s an absolute doozie
Last week Ross Fitzgerald wrote a piece here titled Time to get real on taxing cigarettes and restricting vapes. (more…)
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Time to get real on taxing cigarettes and restricting vapes
Australia’s cigarettes are now the most expensive in the world. Excise has been increased cumulatively by over 340% in the past 20 years, clearly helping to depress consumption for many years. (more…)
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Australia has 120 health workforce policies. But with no national plan, we’re missing the big picture
Australia’s health workforce is under pressure. Wait times are growing. Burnout is rising. Yet the country is awash in policy – just not the kind that solves these problems at the root. (more…)
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Israel bars entry of specialist medical teams into Gaza
As the world leaders produce yet more words and pass yet more resolutions on the genocide on Gaza, more than 12,000 children now are severely, dangerously malnourished as Israel continues to deny sufficient food into the Strip. (more…)
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Well-being, health and the Productivity Roundtable
In June 2025 I wrote about the National Well-being Budget and Measuring What Matters. Since then, a lot has happened that deserves attention, particularly with the government’s planned Productivity Roundtable in August. (more…)
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How we at Physicians for Human Rights Israel decided that the Gaza war is a genocide
When examining all the factors together, we identify a clear pattern that indicates Israeli intent to kill Palestinians in Gaza. The systematic nature is the smoking gun. (more…)
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Digital screen use by infants and toddlers risks long-term health and education outcomes
Greater public health awareness of the harms of digital screen use is needed to reclaim parents as their first and irreplaceable teacher. (more…)
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Trump and Kennedy are destroying global science. Even Einstein questioned facts – but there’s a method to it
Eight months into Donald Trump’s second term as president of the US, truth and science are again under attack – with global consequences. (more…)
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Call for national action to prevent ‘torture’ or death of incarcerated First Nations children
Paediatricians in the Northern Territory see the dire effects of entrenched structural racism on Aboriginal children on a daily basis. (more…)
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Is ChatGPT making us stupid?
Back in 2008, The Atlantic sparked controversy with a provocative cover story: Is Google Making Us Stupid? (more…)
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Australian media persists with a misguided and tragically ineffectual strategy – the way to prevent suicide is not to talk about it
Statistics are cold-hearted methods to gauge the “success” of suicide prevention strategies, yet they are the only tool available to measure the number of Australians who take their lives each year. (more…)
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The productivity paradox
A century ago, industrialists measured economic virility by tonnes of coal hewn per shift. Today, Canberra’s spreadsheets obsess over “GDP per hour worked”. (more…)
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‘Everything beautiful in their lives is gone’: US physicians read aloud the searing testimony of desperate doctors and patients in Gaza
“I have a cold. And in one hour, I’ll have finished a 24-hour shift, heartbroken again. I lost a cardiac patient because we had no medication. (more…)