Continuing A&E overcrowding problem still exists as 523 patients on trolleys today
Ambulances outside Beaumont Hospital in Dublin as the overcrowding problems in Irish hospitals continue
Some 523 patients were waiting on trolleys in Irish hospitals today, the Irish Nurses and Midwives Organisation has confirmed.
“The overcrowding problem continues unabated,” Liam Doran, INMO General Secretary said this morning.
Our Lady of Lourdes Hospital, Drogheda was the worst affected hospital today with 40 patients waiting on trolleys, while 38 patients were on trolleys in Beaumont Hospital. The third worst affected hospital this morning was Dublin’s Connolly Hospital Blanchardstown with 37 patients on trolleys
Some 518 patients were waiting on trolleys in Irish hospitals yesterday.
“The trolley situation contains to be very, very bad and care continues to be compromised,” Mr Doran told RTE’s Morning Ireland.
The capacity to move patients waiting to be discharged to other care facilities “is still not adequate”, he stressed.360p high0:32
Mr Doran said the INMO “does acknowledge” that the influenza outbreak has taken its toll on hospital resources. A percentage of the delayed planned admissions are also now turning up at A&E because they’re worried about their condition, he said.
“They’re concerned about their condition. A manifest of that is happening at the moment.”
The INMO is in talks with the HSE this week about opening 173 around the country.
“It’s not about throwing rocks at one another… In Naas, Tallaght, and Limerick, local managements have agreed to get more staff.”
“[Hospitals] ran below safe levels of staff and we’ve got to bring back more nurses from the UK that were forced to emigrate in recent times,” he said.
The problem is “one about bed capacity and staff capacity”, he said.
February and March are typically bad times for Irish hospitals, Mr Doran said.
HSE to give cutting-edge drug to rare blood disorder patients
John and Aileen Duggan from Bellewstown, Co Meath who launched an online petition to lobby the Government and the HSE to fund the treatment John requires for the terminal blood condition PNH.
A small group of patients have won their battle to get a cutting-edge, potentially life-saving drug costing €434,000 per person a year.
The HSE has relented to pressure to give the drug Soliris to patients who are deemed in clinical need.
Around 17 patients would benefit from the drug which treats diseases Paroxysmal Nocturnal Hemoglobinuria (PNH) and atypical Haemolytic Uraemic (aHUS).The conditions cause the destruction of blood cells, leading to anaemia , fatigue, blood clots and kidney failure.
It can lead to a death in five years for some patients but the new drug can allow them have relatively normal lives.
John Duggan (33) suffers from Paroxysmal Nocturnal Haemoglobinuria (PNH) and was first diagnosed with PNH in 2010. He now requires a blood transfusion every six weeks.
Speaking on the Six:One news about the decision, he said:
“They were battling hard to get me on to this drug, but they (HSE) were saying no and that it was too expensive.
“It’s a life changer. That’s exactly what it is. It just means I’m going to have a total better quality of life and do things I haven’t been able to do for a long time.
“I’m still in shock that it was passed today. I want to thank everyone for all they’ve done in the last three or four weeks to get this campaign to where it is.”
Welcoming the decision Deputy Jerry Buttimer, chair of the Oireachtas Committee on Health and Children said the move by the HSE to extend access to Eculizumab (Soliris) will come as a relief to people who desperately need it.
“The decision of the HSE to extend access to Eculizumab to people diagnosed with PNH and aHUS will come as a relief. There have been protracted efforts by patients, their representatives and public representatives to get the HSE to make this decision. I would like to thank the HSE for taking this decision which will make a huge difference to the day to day lives of people with these rare diseases.
“Everyone’s efforts to bring about this decision again bring into focus the issue of the cost of medicines. Eculizumab costs €430,000 per patient per year and efforts to get the manufacture to reduce its price were unsuccessful. We need to examine closely how our drug purchasing model work and what can be done to reduce the costs to taxpayers. Doing this can have two effects, it can save money and it can allow resources to diverted to other areas of the health service.
“Over the next few months the health committee will be examining these broader policy issues. I hope that this will allow us to ask why drug companies can in effect hold the HSE and Department of Health to ransom.”
Unemployment rate falls to 10.5% for January 2015 in Ireland
Numbers signing on Live Register decrease as labour market continues to improve
The State’s unemployment rate dropped to 10.5% last month, as conditions in the labour market continued to improve.
The State’s unemployment rate dropped to 10.5% last month, as conditions in the labour market continued to improve.
The latest figures indicate that the number of claimants on the Live Register dropped by 3,600 in January. As a result, the seasonally adjusted register, which includes casual and part-time workers, stood at 367,100.
In unadjusted terms there were 358,672 people signing on the Live Register in January 2015. This represents an annual decrease of 40,958 (-10.2%).
The figures, compiled by the Central Statistics Office, shows long-term unemployment decreased by 16,482 (-9.1%) in the month.
The number of male long term claimants decreased by 15,840 (-12.8%) in the year to January 2015, while females decreased by 642 (-1.1%).
In the year to January 2015, the number of persons aged under 25 on the Live Register decreased by 11,248 (-18.6%). Annual decreases in persons aged under 25 have occurred in all months since July 2010. The percentage of persons aged under 25 on the Live Register now stands at 13.7% for January 2015, down from 15.1% in January 2014 and 15.9% in January 2013.
There were 72,085 casual and part-time workers on the live register last month which represents 20.1% of the total Live Register.
Search engine ‘Coc Coc’ just got funding to challenge Google across Southeast Asia
Vietnam is one of a handful of markets around the world where Google faces a respectable competitor in search. That’s because a startup that emerged in 2013 claims to have surpassed Google as the top search service in the nation.
That startup, Coc Coc, revealed today that it has secured an undisclosed amount of funding to help with its growth and technology. The investment comes from Germany-based company Hubert Burda Media.
Co-founder and CEO Victor Lavrenko says that the money will help the upstart search engine “roll out to the rest of Southeast Asia.” No specific plan has been revealed yet.
A Coc Coc representative tells Tech in Asia that the search engine got an average of 2.9 million searches per day in Vietnam in December, which grew to a daily median of 3.7 million in January. That’s up from about one million per day when we last asked in October 2013. The search engine now claims to have 8.7 million monthly active users, which is backed up by ComScore’s numbers showing eight million monthly active users. We’ve contacted Google to try elicit such figures for Vietnam.
Alexa’s rankings indicate that Coc Coc is the number one website in Vietnam, having surpassed Google a while ago. But such rankings are not a sure-fire way of gauging a site’s true popularity – especially as there are many alternative ways to access Google searches rather than just visiting the Google homepage.
Shift to mobile
Just like Google, Coc Coc has other products, such as a desktop-based web browser and an advertising platform. A Coc Coc representative says that the Coc Coc browser, available for Windows and OS X, now pulls in 4.1 million searches each day via its search box, but some of those go to other search engines if a user changes the default settings.
Irish scientists develop €25 bowel cancer test breakthrough
The new affordable, non-invasive blood test will spot bowel cancer at its earliest stage and could save thousands of lives worldwide
Irish scientists have developed a miracle breakthrough in diagnosing bowel cancerthat will cost just €25.
The new affordable, non-invasive blood test will spot bowel cancer at its earliest stage, which could save thousands of lives not only here but worldwide.
The disease is Ireland’s second biggest cancer killer – causing 1,000 deaths a year.
Dr Sinéad Walsh of the Irish Cancer Society said they were “very excited” by the results of the research.
The collaboration between researchers from the Biomedical Diagnostics Institute at Dublin City University (DCU) and Irish biotech firm Randox promises that the test will be available for widespread use by the end of next year.
The test promises to identify cancer missed by existing screening methods, ruling out the need for more intrusive testing.
Professor Richard O’Kennedy, DCU’s Scientific Director of Biomedical Diagnostic Institute explained: “The aim of this new test is to find the cancer at the earliest possible stage, when it is easier to treat, improving outcomes for patients.
“This new, quick and non-invasive test will help in identifying patients with bowel cancer earlier, so they are sent for colonoscopy and thus treated more effectively.
“Survival rates from bowel cancer are closely associated with the stage at diagnosis.
“More than half of people with bowel cancer are diagnosed in the later stages, requiring more complex treatment, with a poorer chance of survival.”
Currently, bowel cancer places a huge burden on our healthcare system.
Stage one treatment costs are estimated at €18,550 a patient, while stage three costs are more than double that, at €45,000.
Current methods of testing for the disease have proved slow and unreliable.
The nature of the sample required for these tests has also resulted in worryingly low levels of patient uptake.
Discussions with the HSE on the roll-out of the new blood test have now begun and are in the early stages.
Dr Sinéad Walsh, Irish Cancer Society researcher added: “We are very excited by the results of this research as it will help us move another step forward in our strategy towards a future without cancer.
“The earlier bowel cancer can be detected, the better the outcome for patients.
“This, coupled with the ability to personalise treatments for bowel cancer patients, will contribute to better outcomes for people with bowel cancer.”
This octopus has some serious camouflage skills
Lucky snorkeller gets rare footage of an octopus changing colour after camouflaging itself against a coral reef.
A man snorkelling in the Caribbean has captured a relatively rare sight of an octopus shedding its camouflage.
In the video, the octopus is barely visible while camouflaged against the backdrop of the reef.
It is only when the camera draws nearer that the octopus transforms and begins to pulse a bright electric blue.
Like a chameleon, certain species of octopus can change their skin tone and colour.
This is down to specialised skin cells called chromatophores.
However unlike chameleons, which use chemical signals to change the colour of their skin, octopuses control their colour changes using a complex network of nerves and muscles.
As the octopus is a soft-tissue invertibrate vulnerable to predators, it’s camouflage is primarily understood as a form of protection and defence.
No comments:
Post a Comment