The News Review:
- Printer Friendly Format – Sunday Herald
- A shot in the arm for the Health Ministry?
- Health coverage helps kids through tough times
- Africa lags far behind UN goal of slashing child mortality
Printer Friendly Format – Sunday Herald
Sunday Herald – Apr 12, 2008
Help for poorer mothers with no experience of supportive parenting has had positive effects on health of children and young adults in several studies. A strategy combining action to support those most at risk will require input from all departments of government and its implementation needs local authorities, the NHS and the third sector to come together in new ways to put it into action. Professor Kathleen Marshall, Scotland’s commissioner for children and young people
Child health cannot be treated in isolation. Nor, as this research shows, is there a simple relation with deprivation, although this can be a key factor. If children are helped to be safe, active and happy, this will have a positive impact on their physical and mental health. Adults’ fears are increasingly impacting on children’s lives with consequences for their health and well-being. Fear of being accused of harming a child, through abuse or neglect, can cause adults to withdraw from the kind of friendly and affectionate interaction with children that used to be above suspicion… Adults’ fears are increasingly impacting on children’s lives with consequences for their health and well-being. Fear of being accused of harming a child, through abuse or neglect, can cause adults to withdraw from the kind of friendly and affectionate interaction with children that used to be above suspicion. To tackle poor child health, two changes are crucial. Lindsay MacHardy, director of programme design and delivery, NHS Health Scotland
We need to keep the long term in view and put in place the building blocks of a healthier future. Addressing inequalities in health in the early years is paramount and initiatives to support new parents, to increase breastfeeding, to ensure access to services and provide health-promoting facilities and environments are all important. The roll-out of health-promoting schools, the inclusion of health in the curriculum and ensuring opportunities for physical activity, the provision of healthy food and positive social and emotional development, are all key areas of action to improve young people’s health.
A shot in the arm for the Health Ministry?
Jerusalem Post – Apr 12, 2008
Itamar Grotto Photo: Judy Siegel-Itzkovich Dr. Itamar Grotto – previously in charge of public health in the IDF and hired by the Health Ministry last December to become its director of public health services – has already learned this lesson. “When I came here, I found the ministry hierarchical, with people working according to the guidelines they know. It is a bureaucracy. But I arrived optimistic, and I want to be here for a long time,” he said in an interview with The Jerusalem Post in his office on Jerusalem’s King David Street. Grotto, a man of few words, studied medicine at Tel Aviv University’s Sackler Medical Faculty immediately after high school as part of the IDF’s atuda (academic training) program… Alex Leventhal (who became its international liaison). Grotto felt he couldn’t turn the offer down because “the job is an important one. ” The ministry knew of him because he served as an adviser for possible emergencies such as a pandemic influenzaThe Hod Hasharon resident is now in charge of some 2,000 ministry employees in the Food Service, epidemiology department, tuberculosis and AIDS department, environmental health, mother-and-child health department, nutrition, public health nursing, health promotion and district health offices. HE IS WELL aware that health education and disease prevention get short shrift in the state budget, attracting less than 5% of health expenditures, with most devoted to the treatment of disease in clinics and hospitals. But Grotto is determined to change that. One of the more urgent matters he has had to deal with is a recent outbreak of measles. About 1,000 cases have been registered, and there is no end in sight.
Health coverage helps kids through tough times
Utica Observer Dispatch – Apr 12, 2008
Record gasoline prices continue to take larger bites out of their paychecks. To make matters worse, the cost of grocery staples like milk and eggs are up 26 and 40 percent, respectively, from last year, according to the Labor Department. As more New Yorkers find the bubble bursting on their American dream — with their employers increasingly unwilling or unable to afford to provide health insurance coverage — Fidelis Care wants to mark Cover the Uninsured Week from April 27 to May 3 to remind people that their children can still be covered during these difficult economic times through Child Health Plus. There is no reason for any child in New York to go without health coverage for any length of time. Most people don’t realize that every child under the age of 19, regardless of income, qualifies for Child Health Plus and can be covered for regular checkups, emergency care, dental, eye care, prescription drugs and more. Child Health Plus coverage may be free or may require a premium payment based on family income. Premiums start as low as $9 a month… These discouraging numbers show no signs of reversing. Every day, thousands of New Yorkers face having to choose whether to purchase groceries or fill a prescription. Thousands more must weigh their options when the rent is due, the car needs repair and the baby has a fever. Studies show that the uninsured who are without coverage for a full year receive about half (55 percent) of the medical care per person compared to those who have health coverage for an entire year — even after taking uncompensated care into account. It is clear being and staying healthy is a formidable challenge when you don’t have your own doctor and the costs for preventive and routine care are too much to bear alone. Health care providers are also negatively affected, with New York hospitals providing hundreds of millions of dollars in uncompensated care each year despite ranking 49th in the nation in average operating margin in 2006, according to the American Hospital Association. In December 2007, the Healthcare Association of New York State reported that more than half of the state’s hospitals lost money or recorded margins of less than 1 percent in 2006.
Africa lags far behind UN goal of slashing child mortality
Tehran Times – Apr 12, 2008
In at least 15 African countries, one out of four or five children never sees his or her fifth birthday, according to UN statistics. In the world’s richest nations, the corresponding figure is one out of 200 or less. “”National and global attention to maternal, newborn, and child health is still strikingly inadequate,”" Richard Horton, editor-in-chief of The Lancet, wrote in a sharply-worded commentary. “”Children and mothers are dying because those who have the power to prevent their deaths choose not to act,”" he said. Seven of the 16 nations that are succeeding in the fight against child mortality were already on track when the countdown was launched in 2005, the study showed. They include Brazil, Bangladesh, Mexico and Indonesia, some of the world’s most populous nations. Six others were included in the Countdown process — initiated by UN and public-health scientists to spur progress — for the first time this year, including Eritrea, Peru, and Morocco.
