Category: Health

Words and phrases used to define, classify, and order our world, combine to tell a good story. That story, told often enough, seems normal. But that story can hide, ignore, and distort, reinforcing unhelpful beliefs and stereotypes. This is what’s happening with stories about skills and occupations. (more…)

Aged care and disability services bureaucratic elites seem increasingly to work in ways that are divorced from morality and common sense and removed from the everyday reality experienced by older people and their families. (more…)

Under-funding is not the main reason for the crisis in Australia’s public hospitals. A far bigger problem is systemic stupidity. (more…)

Climate scientists reveal data that earth’s heating is accelerating, heat extremes are increasing and 1.5C has been breached faster than forecast. We are failing to treat climate change as the single greatest threat to humanity. (more…)

Ill health, perhaps especially mental ill health, is generally seen as a personal issue, requiring diagnosis and treatment. But at the population level, mental health problems have a profound message for our societies and their futures. We need to pay it more heed. (more…)

In 1964, the first US Surgeon-General’s report on smoking and health was published. The tobacco industry could veto the proposed members of the committee set up to write it. Today, the idea of giving the tobacco industry power over government processes would cause outrage. Likewise, the idea of big businesses or unions setting tax policy is absurd. (more…)

Back in 1947 the W.H. Auden poem, The Age of Anxiety, was published a year after he renounced his British citizenship for US citizenship. (more…)

Much has already been said and written about the recent tragic stabbings at Bondi Junction. Daily, we are also exposed to stories about the ravages of war, hopefully neither suppressing nor being overwhelmed by them. As a funeral celebrant, I am familiar with, but never complacent about death and suffering – indeed, it is a privilege to stand with those who miss and celebrate the lives of their loved ones. How can we deal with all this death and suffering? (more…)

The changes will be particularly helpful for women living with conditions including epilepsy, breast cancer, type 2 diabetes, inflammatory bowel diseases and more. (more…)

Our society is failing the seriously mentally ill. (more…)

UK Health Minister Aneurin Bevan introduced the National Health Service (NHS) pointing out that “Illness is neither an indulgence for which people have to pay, nor an offence for which they should be penalised, but a misfortune the cost of which should be shared by the community.” (more…)

Aged care staff are unhappy and many older people in residential aged care are unhappy. Certainly, the NSW Health Minister and the hospitals are unhappy because there are 600 people sitting in acute hospital beds who could be in aged care facilities. (more…)

Australia is conducting its first climate risk assessment and developing an adaptation plan. Not only humans experience heat stress, so do other animals and plants. If you must feed wild birds, listen to the experts’ tips.

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Here I write as a 62-year-old person, formulating the persistent issues of my life by giving my ongoing attention to Friedreich’s Ataxia. I can hardly avoid doing this because it has so shaped my entire life since it’s onset when I was 14 – that means I have had to deal with it for nearly half a century – I never once dreamt or had nightmares that this condition would be partnering me so closely on life’s journey. (more…)

Downplaying the seriousness of the Covid-19 sequelae known as “Long Covid” is a serious mistake. (more…)

At first sight there might not seem to be much connection between health and the AUKUS military alliance. But the threats posed by AUKUS to health are multiple and strong, at local, national, regional and global levels. A serious examination of those threats should form an important part of preventive healthcare. (more…)

Picture a courtroom scenario, the accused and his family members have eyes on the jury foreman who is about to announce the verdict. The accused knows he is guilty, but is hoping for luck to come his way through the jury’s decision. The foreman speaks: “Guilty”.
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The Federal Government last week launched a new influencer-led social media campaign to discourage vaping among young people, warning that social media is “awash” with pro-vaping content. (more…)

GP visits are down 37% since the government took office. But all we get is spin. (more…)