Welcome to the Podcast of Another 15 Minutes, Health News from the Fade Library. Full links to the articles detailed can be found at www (dot) fade the blog 2 (dot) blogspot (dot)com
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National News
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Catholics' ID aims to avert ward euthanasia - The Observer 14th January 2007
Catholics fearing an increasing acceptance of euthanasia in Britain are carrying religious 'ID cards' telling doctors not to withhold liquid from the patient. Tens of thousands have been sold on the website of the Association of Catholic Women. It reads: 'In case of my admission to hospital, please contact a Roman Catholic priest. I would like my nursing care to include fluids - however administered.'
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Simon Garfield investigates the symptoms, treatment and prognosis of dyslexia - The Observer 14th January 2007
More than 100 years after 'word blindness' was first discovered, thousands of children with great potential are still marginalised by an education system unable to cope with a common but silent disorder. Simon Garfield investigates the symptoms, treatment and prognosis of dyslexia
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My dyslexic boys never went private, says Blunkett - The Observer 14th January 2007
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Kelly axed 2,700 special needs places - The Sunday Times 14th January 2007
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So, that's one happy parent - The Sunday Telegraph News 14th January 2007
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In the drive to save the NHS, I'm choosing a Toyota - The Observer 14th January 2007
Two recipes for fixing the NHS were on offer in the media last week. The one that garnered the headlines - Sir Gerry Robinson's televised attempt to galvanise Rotherham General Hospital - demonstrated that leadership and common sense are sensible and important. But it came suspiciously close to business reality TV, and Robinson's idea that one million-dollar supermanager can kick the service into shape is dangerous and deluded - as with all calls for heroic leadership, the counsel of someone who has run out of substantive ideas.
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Bird flu 'buddies' plan - The Observer 14th January 2007
Everyone in Britain will be asked to name a friend or relative who would be willing to bring them life-saving medication in the event of a flu pandemic. Under a national pandemic plan being unveiled this week, patients who fall ill with symptoms of a highly virulent form will rely on their 'bird flu buddies' to bring them emergency Tamiflu tablets, rather than a doctor or nurse.
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How Pearce of the Yard cracked the case of free NHS care for the elderly - The Observer 14th January 2007
A case brought by a former detective with Scotland Yard's Flying Squad has opened the doors for more than 300,000 elderly people to have their long-term care paid for. Torbay Care Trust has announced that it will repay £50,000 to Mike Pearce after it agreed that his mother, Ruby, had been wrongly required to pay for her own care. A dementia sufferer, she was deemed too well to have her care funded by the NHS despite, as the Alzheimer's Society put it, 'being incapable of doing anything but chewing and swallowing'. Her home in Torquay was sold to fund her nursing home fees.
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Jill Insley: We've inherited a heavy burden of care costs - The Observer 14th January 2007
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Ruby put her faith in the NHS but it failed her - The Sunday Times 14th January 2007
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Bungling ministers threaten life-saving research - The Observer 14th January 2007
At first sight, the idea of creating 'man-animal' hybrid embryos in British laboratories is a disturbing one. The decision - by the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority (HFEA) - to launch public consultations over the proposed development of such entities would therefore seem sound. However, on closer examination, the issues raised by this case do not look ones that affect research itself. Instead, they highlight worrying concerns about our leaders' abilities to understand, and direct, UK science.
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Anna Carolina Reston: the model who starved herself to death - The Observer 14th January 2007
When Ana Carolina Reston arrived for her first foreign fashion shoot, the 8st model was warned she was too fat. Two years later, and two stone lighter, she died from complications arising from anorexia. Tom Phillips reports from Sao Paulo on the tragic waste of a woman whose childhood dreams of being a cover girl came true - but for all the wrong reasons
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A nation of gambling addicts - The Independent 14th January 2007
Britain is heading towards a gambling epidemic, leading doctors will warn this week, with women and teenagers at greatest risk of addiction. A major report from the British Medical Association is expected to say there is an urgent need for more treatment services, especially for women gamblers, who are expected to equal men within 20 years as gambling becomes more female-friendly.
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A very big bet: Why doctors say the new casino culture is bad for you - The Independent 14th January 2007
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British males are in denial over their weight, doctors warn - The Independent 14th January 2007
Millions of British men risk serious illness by refusing to do anything about their burgeoning beer bellies, preferring instead to ignore them. A new national poll reveals that one-third of British men - around 7.5 million - have a beer gut. Some 80 per cent of those are clinically overweight or obese. Seven per cent of those polled expressed pride at owning a beer gut.
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The woman who was locked up because of her depression - The Independent 14th January 2007
A case that shows tough new mental health legislation should be used only sparingly
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World's first test-tube baby has a child of her own - The Independent 14th January 2007
Louise Brown, the first test-tube baby in the world, has given birth to a child of her own. The boy named Cameron was conceived naturally and without IVF. He was born weighing 5lb 6oz at St Michael's Hospital in Bristol just before Christmas and Louise describes him as "tiny but perfect" in an interview with The Mail on Sunday.
Baby son joy for test-tube mother - BBC Health News 14th January 2007
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Ministers fight NHS closures - The Independent 14th January 2007
At least 13 members of Tony Blair's government have campaigned against the closure of services at NHS hospitals in their constituencies, it emerged yesterday. Those exerting pressure over planned closures include senior ministers.
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Britain's latest must-have cosmetic surgery is the chin-job - The Independent 14th January 2007
First it was breasts; then hips, lips and buttocks. Now Britain's seemingly insatiable appetite for cosmetic curves has seized upon yet another part of the body: the chin. Plastic surgeons are reporting a sharp increase in the number of patients signing up for the latest must-have procedure.
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GM hens lay eggs to fight cancer - The Sunday Times 14th January 2007
SCIENTISTS have created the world’s first breed of designer chickens, genetically modified to lay eggs capable of producing drugs that fight cancer and other life-threatening diseases. Researchers at the Roslin Institute near Edinburgh, which created Dolly the cloned sheep, have bred a 500-strong flock of the birds.
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Focus: Organ swap - The Sunday Times 14th January 2007
Surgeons are planning Britain's first multiple kidney swap with up to 50 couples taking part. Will it work? Lorraine, a 37-year-old restaurant supervisor from Hampshire, has been waiting for a kidney transplant for almost five years. Three days a week she has to attend hospital for gruelling dialysis sessions. Lately her condition has deteriorated and she is now too ill to work.
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Brown can’t cure this paralysed NHS, so he plans to privatise it - The Sunday Times 14th January 2007
The former Granada boss Sir Gerry Robinson recently spent six months trying to reform Rotherham general hospital. The result was shown in three hours of fly-on-the-wall television on BBC2 last week. It was rightly put after the watershed: as politics it was certificate 18. At the end of each day Robinson could be seen slumped in the back of his car, his face buried in his hands. A tycoon sobbing in a limousine is the perfect icon of Labour’s health service.
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Dentists to lead fight against alcohol abuse - The Sunday Times 14th January 2007
DENTISTS should be recruited to identify problem drinkers as part of a crackdown on alcohol abuse, according to a government adviser. Dr Peter Rice, a leading authority on alcohol addiction, is to advise ministers to use Scotland’s 2,000 dentists to help identify and treat patients with drink problems.
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Comment: Gillian Bowditch: Faith in the NHS is a mistake - The Sunday Times 14th January 2007
Perhaps I am unduly jaundiced, but last week’s call by an Edinburgh-based professor for more “faith-based” NHS services had me praying for strength. Coming in the week when it was revealed that the government’s targets for reducing MRSA infections will not be met and following Sir Gerry Robinson’s excellent television series on the NHS, faith in our health service has rarely been lower.
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My cure for affluenza - The Sunday Times 14th January 2007
Last week, as Steve Jobs of Apple was unveiling his newest, most pointless yuppie must-have to a rhapsodic audience of MacConsumers, and as David Beckham was sealing his obscene mega-deal, and as the Bank of England was raising interest rates again to punish this property-obsessed nation, your columnist was on a slow train to Yeovil with a bag of Millie’s Cookies.
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Midwife shortage threatens to derail government pledge on home births - The Sunday Telegraph News 14th January 2007
A chronic shortage of midwives is jeopardising the Government's promise to allow every woman the chance to give birth at home. In some cases, women who have booked home births have had their babies delivered by relatives and friends because overworked midwives were unavailable.
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GPs piecework pay boosts chronic caseload - The Sunday Telegraph News 14th January 2007
New GP contracts could be open to exploitation by doctors, it is feared, after nearly 850,000 extra cases of chronic disease were diagnosed in England last year. The figure is equivalent to 100 additional diagnoses for every GP practice in Britain.
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Longer hospital waits if you live in Tory seat - The Sunday Telegraph News 14th January 2007
Patients in Conservative constituencies wait 10 days longer on average to be treated in an NHS hospital than those in Labour seats. Figures from the Department of Health, seen by The Sunday Telegraph, show that people living in areas with a Tory MP wait an average of 95 days for treatment involving a stay in hospital. Patients in Labour constituencies are seen within 85 days. Residents in Liberal Democrat areas wait, on average, 92 days.
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CBI attacks 'overgenerous' public pensions - The Sunday Telegraph News 14th January 2007
Martin Broughton, the president of the CBI, has launched a withering attack on the Government for failing to address the mushrooming liabilities of public sector pensions. While many companies have taken tough action to reduce massive deficits in their own pension schemes, Broughton said state workers were still being offered "overgenerous" retirement benefits.
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Nish Joshi's Q&A - The Sunday Telegraph News 14th January 2007
I am 67 and had an unsuccessful hiatus hernia operation about 40 years ago. Two years ago I was diagnosed with Barrett's oesophagus. The drug therapy gave me such severe stomach pain that I wasn't able to continue with it and my consultant advises against surgery, so now I am simply taking an antacid before bed. My digestive problems are worsening, even though my weight is average, I eat normally and exercise daily. I would be grateful for any advice on a diet that could help.
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System to spot at-risk patients - BBC Health News 14th January 2007
Computer technology is helping doctors identify patients with long-term conditions at risk of deterioration, before they need hospital care. Using patient information from a range of sources, a new programme predicts when people with conditions such as asthma will take a turn for the worse.
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Cancer patient considers new home - BBC Health News 14th January 2007
A cancer patient says he is planning to move from England to Scotland to be sure of getting a drug which may prolong his life on the NHS. George King, from Skelton, Teeside has a rare terminal form of bone cancer.
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International News
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Imagine a country where you can get 30 years in jail for having an abortion ... - The Observer 14th January 2007
Police interrogations? Vagina inspectors? Midwives informing on patients? Jack Hitt reports from El Salvador where evangelical anti-abortion laws have put women's rights back in the dark ages.
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Coalition to unveil €50bn welfare plan - The Sunday Times 14th January 2007
UP TO €50 billion in social spending programmes will be included in next week’s €175 billion National Development Plan (NDP), which the government will launch at a ceremony attended by most of the cabinet. With just a few months before the general election, the government has set up a massive “social inclusion” fund to be spent over the next seven years. It is designed to reduce poverty, increase protection for workers, and raise the quality of care for older people. A further €25 billion will be spent on social infra-structure — hospitals, social housing, garda stations and a criminal courts complex for Dublin.
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Doctors ‘only pretend’ to do resuscitation - The Sunday Times 14th January 2007
DOCTORS and nurses in Irish hospitals are intentionally going too slowly in their efforts to resuscitate some terminally ill patients who suffer a heart attack, a new study claims. The practice, known as a “slow code”, has happened where a patient is not under a Do Not Resuscitate (DNR) order, or the family has asked for everything to be done to save them, but the doctor feels cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) is futile and will only prolong suffering.
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Drug 'strangles cancer's spread' - BBC Health News 14th January 2007
The spread of prostate cancer can be halted with a drug which "strangles" tumour cells by cutting off their blood supply, a study has suggested. Tests on mice showed that using the leukaemia drug Glivec helped stop prostate cancer spreading to the bone.
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Cumbria and Lancashire News
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Health overhaul: Talking needed - Lancashire Telegraph 13th January 2007
COUNCIL and NHS bosses are having trouble communicating on hospital shake-up plans - which rely on them working together well.Work on putting in place controversial changes is being held up by different organisat-ions not communicating well, the team leading the project has said.
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MP moves to block ambulance HQ move - Carlisle News & Star 13th January 2007
A CUMBRIAN MP has tabled an early day motion in the House of Commons opposing plans to scrap the county’s ambulance control room. Tim Farron, who represents the South Lakes area, says the Government needs to hold ambulance chiefs to account before lives are lost.
Full links to the articles detailed can be found at www(dot) fade the blog 2 (dot)blogspot (dot)com, This has been a Podcast of Another 15 Minutes ... Health News from the Fade Library.
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