The News Review:
- The top health stories of 2008
- Getting childhood mental health care right
- Zimbabwe receives UN medical aid to combat cholera
- Superbug overshadows health service
- State’s hospitals must come clean on germs
The top health stories of 2008
CNN
But studies published in the New England Journal of Medicine and elsewhere have found no link between autism and vaccines. Additionally the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention the American Academy of Pediatrics the Institute of Medicine and other medical organizations have repeatedly asserted that vaccines are safe. But the Department of Health and Human Services’ Division of Vaccine Injury Compensation concluded that Hannah Poling a child who had been predisposed to autism had a condition that was "significantly aggravated" by vaccinations and that her family should be compensated. Hannah began having problems after receiving nine childhood vaccines in 2000 said her father Dr. Jon Poling a neurologist in Athens Georgia. While the Polings said they don’t oppose childhood vaccinations they want thimerosal a mercury vaccine preservative removed. Thimerosal was removed from infant vaccines beginning in 1999.
Getting childhood mental health care right
Milford Daily News USA
Some 2000 received information about children’s mental health. The league’s latest study found that parents of children with mental health issues gave high ratings to the services provided by the schools. However about 35 percent found those services difficult or very difficult to get and less than 40 percent of parents said their child’s mental health needs were well understood by the school. "They kept telling me they were meeting his needs but they weren’t" she said. "They were really very kind and sweet but they couldn’t really push him to his potential. They were doing the best with what they had but the resources weren’t enough.
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Zimbabwe receives UN medical aid to combat cholera
Times of India India
ver the past week the UNFPA in partnership with theZimbabwe Ministry of Health and Child Welfare has delivered emergencyreproductive health kits medicine and surgical supplies to the maternity careunits of Zimbabwe’s central hospitals many of which are on the verge ofcollapse. “The total consignment can meet the needs of a populationof about 900000 for at least three months” UNFPA says. The agencyhas also handed out enough drugs to prevent pregnancy-related complications suchas haemorrhaging and eclampsia throughout the country for the next six monthsas well as pay incentives to maternity care medics many of whom have gonewithout salaries and cannot report to work. The moves are intendedto throw a life-line to maternity units suffering from severe shortages of staffand supplies that have put the lives of thousands of pregnant women at riskUNFPA said. The Government has declared the cholera outbreak anational emergency but the healthcare situation remains dire with many familiesunable to afford treatment and may worsen during the current rainy season.
Superbug overshadows health service
BBC News UK
a deadly strain of the hospital superbug Clostridium Difficile – or C diff for short. A C diff outbreak hit hospitals in the Northern Trust area. The strain called 027 was diagnosed in a patient in September 2007. Then in January 2008 the Trust formally declared they had an outbreak. By the time it was over in August dozens of deaths had been linked to the superbug.
State’s hospitals must come clean on germs
Sacramento Bee USA
“I had never even heard of MRSA or that there was a risk of becoming infected with it in a hospital” said Gaston who lives in Elverta. The federal centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates 2 million patients contract an infection in hospitals every year and nearly 100000 of them die. As many as 9600 of those deaths occur in California according to the state Department of Health Services. Senate Bill 1058 by Sen. Elaine Alquist D-Santa Clara will require hospitals to publicly disclose their infection rates and screen certain high-risk patients for MRSA. “The heartbreaking thing is this is something than can be prevented with something as simple as hand-washing” Alquist said. “Hospitals ought to be safe places to go – you shouldn’t go in and then die from something else.
