News Articles
Loneliness triples women's risk of dying early
Date of Posting: 07-04-2025
Women who feel lonely over an extended period are three times more likely to die early than those who don't. Research by the University of Sydney has for the first time identified a causal link between loneliness and early death among middle-a Read More...
Australians enlisted to help flush out hidden dunnies
Date of Posting: 06-04-2025
Pining for a pee? Desperate for a deuce? Everyone experiences an urgent need when nature calls, but finding the nearest dunny can be a challenge. For those facing continence issues - be they children or the elderly, pregnant, disabled or dealing w Read More...
Doctors warned strike plan is not the right medicine
Date of Posting: 06-04-2025
Doctors are being urged to reconsider a planned strike with threats of legal and financial consequences, as further elective surgery cancellations risk adding to an extensive waitlist. Medical indemnity insurers warn doctors could face disciplinar Read More...
Scalpels down as doctors plan rare strike over pay rise
Date of Posting: 04-04-2025
Doctors will strike for the first time in decades after almost a year of unsuccessful negotiations for a pay rise they are told is impossible. But both sides of the dispute agree the impact on patient care in public hospitals should be minimal.[su Read More...
Teenage ailments linked to poor diets and bad habits
Date of Posting: 04-04-2025
While Timothy To was navigating the pressures of teenage life in high school, he had an added burden at home. With the adults in his life working, the then 13-year-old would care for his siblings and family members with intellectual disabilities w Read More...
Hearing aids to heart monitors: tech is going healthy
Date of Posting: 03-04-2025
Wearable gadgets did little more than count steps when they first appeared, promising to assess a user's health depending on whether they hit 10,000 a day. But the technology, which now ranges from smartwatches and fitness trackers to smart ri Read More...
Rural birth care 'crisis' looms amid staff shortages
Date of Posting: 03-04-2025
One rural birthing unit "teeters on the brink" and goes from "one disaster to the next" due to severe staff shortages. Another maternity service in a farming town of 15,000 closed four years after opening its doors, forcing spe Read More...
Falling vaccination rate risks horror flu season
Date of Posting: 03-04-2025
Vaccine uptake among Australians has been lower than previous years ahead of the flu season, with misinformation spreading online and pandemic fatigue also putting people off getting a jab. Half a million fewer people were vaccinated for influenza Read More...
New mums urged to exercise to improve their health
Date of Posting: 27-03-2025
New mothers should aim for two hours of moderate to vigorous exercise every week, such as brisk walking or cycling, researchers say. Getting back to exercise in the first 12 weeks after birth will help boost both physical and mental health and imp Read More...
More than 4000 complaints about private health insurers
Date of Posting: 27-03-2025
Poor customer service and protracted delays in processing claims by health insurers are frustrating thousands around the nation, a report has found. The Office of the Commonwealth Ombudsman received 4,241 complaints and over 1,600 enquiries about Read More...
Nurses, midwives accept pay deal after nine-month fight
Date of Posting: 27-03-2025
Nurses and midwives at a network of private hospitals will become the highest paid in their state after accepting a pay deal following lengthy negotiations. More than 1300 staff at St Vincent's Private Hospitals' Melbourne sites in Fitzroy Read More...
Alcohol risk ad blitz aims to stop overseas tragedies
Date of Posting: 25-03-2025
An ad blitz warning of the risks of overseas alcohol hopes to prevent tragedies like the one which killed two teenage best friends. The advertising campaign, launched on Monday, targets young Australians to raise awareness of overseas alcohol-rela Read More...
Dental body sinks teeth into private health policies
Date of Posting: 25-03-2025
Dentists want federal government action to ensure private health insurers can't hide behind hidden policy conditions. The Australian Dental Association is urging for tougher laws to provide more transparency, saying there is confusion and unce Read More...
One state won't leave cardiac arrest survival to chance
Date of Posting: 25-03-2025
There were no warning signs when teenager Austin Blight went into cardiac arrest. The 17-year-old collapsed unconscious at the gym, where staff rushed to his aid and quickly realised he didn't have a pulse.[subscribe] He survived because st Read More...
Doctor takes script fraud across interstate lines
Date of Posting: 24-03-2025
A doctor who stole a colleague's prescription pad and forged her signature had his tangled web of lies uncovered when he took his crimes interstate. His conduct was revealed in court documents presented before the Victorian Civil and Administr Read More...
State tops global cardiac arrest survival rates
Date of Posting: 24-03-2025
Those who have a heart attack in one Australian state are more likely to survive than they would in almost any other place in the world. The 2023/24 Victorian Ambulance Cardiac Arrest Registry annual report has been released, showing groundbreakin Read More...
Nurses strike for better pay at hospital under scrutiny
Date of Posting: 24-03-2025
Hundreds of nurses and midwives at a public hospital run by a private conglomerate under the spotlight of an inquiry, are walking out for more than 24 hours calling for better pay and conditions. Striking staff on Monday at Northern Beaches Hospit Read More...
The 'disease of the elderly' afflicting Aussie kids
Date of Posting: 23-03-2025
Before her then-four-year-old daughter's diagnosis, Arti Brown held a common perception that arthritis was a condition reserved for the elderly. "I hate the fact that I must have felt like that at the time," the Sydney mum told AAP.[ Read More...
Pill-testing scrapped as deadly opioid emerges
Date of Posting: 23-03-2025
A state government has been slammed for abandoning permanent pill-testing clinics after extremely potent synthetic opioids were found in Australian wastewater for the first time. Queensland has decided not to renew contracts for fixed pill testing Read More...
Chronic patients get most relief in medicine cost cut
Date of Posting: 21-03-2025
Australians with chronic conditions could save more than $80 a year as plans to cut prescription medicine costs receive bipartisan support. But threats from big US pharmaceutical companies could throw a spanner in the works.[subscribe] The maxi Read More...
Caffeine, fruit and fibre 'may lower risk of tinnitus'
Date of Posting: 20-03-2025
Eating a diet rich in fruit, fibre, dairy and caffeine may lower the risk of suffering tinnitus, research suggests. Tinnitus refers to noises that do not come from an outside source, and includes ringing in the ears or buzzing, whooshing or hummin Read More...
Hundreds of medicines to cost less in $689m plan
Date of Posting: 20-03-2025
PATIENTS' PRESCRIPTION COSTS CAPPED UNDER LABOR PLAN * Australians buying prescription medicines listed on the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme will pay no more than $25 for each script from January 1, if Labor is re-elected[subscribe] * The Read More...
Indigenous medicos nursing First Peoples back to health
Date of Posting: 20-03-2025
Lila Pigliafiori knows the power of having an Indigenous healthcare provider in community. Her mother was a nurse and Aboriginal health worker, and also inspiration for herself to enter the field.[subscribe] Now as a clinical nurse consultant i Read More...
Long waits at hospitals amid record ambulance demand
Last Updated: 19-03-2025
Increasing numbers of people seeking emergency treatment in Australia's largest public health system are leaving before they receive care, while those undergoing elective surgeries are waiting longer than they should. More than 100,000 patient Read More...
Higher bar to prove stress, burnout in compo overhaul
Date of Posting: 19-03-2025
Stressed, bullied and burnt-out workers are being blamed for an unsustainable burden on a compensation scheme designed for people who lose limbs or break bones on the job. Those claiming psychological injuries from bullying or harassment in the wo Read More...
Plea to help unlock common condition's genetic secrets
Date of Posting: 18-03-2025
Krish Waje has spent most of her life in fight-or-flight mode. That's how she describes living with anxiety, Australia's most common mental health condition which affects some 3.4 million people aged 16 to 84.[subscribe] "You'r Read More...
Public mental health system 'overwhelmed' as staff quit
Date of Posting: 18-03-2025
An underfunded mental health system "driven by crisis" has been highlighted as a stand-off over psychiatrists' pay reaches the courtroom. Successive NSW governments have failed to address a retention crisis being fuelled by better pa Read More...
Umpire asked to intervene in mental health doctor fight
Date of Posting: 17-03-2025
A battle involving overworked psychiatrists and an underfunded mental health system will come to a head amid calls for urgent action. NSW's acute mental health system has been in turmoil in recent months after 62 public psychiatrists quit and Read More...
Better value for patients in bid to fix transparency
Date of Posting: 17-03-2025
Voters are being offered a better understanding of their medical bills, with a promise to improve transparency. Patients across Australia can pay hundreds more than their neighbours for the same procedure, with fees varying widely from specialist Read More...
IVF, contraception drugs cheaper as birth rate dips
Date of Posting: 16-03-2025
A new treatment for a common painful condition and two other drugs will be made cheaper to improve thousands of Australian women's lives. About 8500 Australian women are expected to benefit annually when Ryeqo is listed on the pharmaceutical b Read More...
Measles cases rise in US as outbreak spreads
Date of Posting: 16-03-2025
Measles cases in Texas and New Mexico have risen to 294, surpassing all US cases recorded in 2024, as an outbreak that began in late January in West Texas spreads. The US reported 285 total infections last year, based on data from the US Centers f Read More...
Dietitians push nutrition as weight loss drugs surge
Date of Posting: 16-03-2025
Australian doctors who prescribe weight-loss drugs such as Ozempic should be obliged to refer the patient to dieticians at the same time, the nutrition industry's peak body says. Any prescription of such medication must happen alongside a refe Read More...
Toddler's death prompts probe into hospital's safety
Date of Posting: 14-03-2025
A controversial privately run public hospital will face a parliamentary probe after critical failings led to the death of a toddler. Two-year-old Joe Massa collapsed and died in September after he and his parents waited three hours in the emergenc Read More...
'Forgotten' disability workers rally for pay boost
Date of Posting: 14-03-2025
Music from a loud brass band and union chants echoed through the top end of town as "forgotten" workers rallied for a pay boost. Dozens of disability support workers marched through Melbourne's city streets on Thursday to draw attent Read More...
Being married triples obesity risk in men
Last Updated: 13-03-2025
Being married triples the risk of obesity in men, new research suggests. Experts found the risks of being overweight increase for both sexes when married, but appear to be particularly acute for men.[subscribe] The research will be presented at Read More...
World-first discharge for artificial heart patient
Date of Posting: 13-03-2025
Almost two decades after his father died from heart failure, Daniel Timms has helped to transform treatment for patients across the globe. His invention, the BiVACOR Total Artificial Heart, recently marked an important milestone when an Australian Read More...
Genes linked to smoking in pregnancy identified
Date of Posting: 12-03-2025
British researchers have identified a genetic link to smoking in pregnancy. The study also showed men experience more long-lasting effects when their mother smokes while pregnant than women - including dying younger if they go on to smoke themselv Read More...
WHO starts slimming down in response to US cuts
Date of Posting: 12-03-2025
The World Health Organisation has begun a process of fixing new priorities and announced a one-year limit on staff contracts, an internal memo shows, as it aims to make the UN agency more sustainable after the US withdrawal. The memo, dated March Read More...
COVID response failed human rights amid fresh warning
Date of Posting: 11-03-2025
Australians' human rights were overlooked in governmental COVID-19 responses, a new report reveals, with experts saying the country isn't prepared for its next health emergency. Domestic violence victims, renters, casual workers and at-ris Read More...
China targets obesity as half of all adults overweight
Date of Posting: 10-03-2025
The Chinese government is aiming to tackle obesity among its population of 1.4 billion, including the more than 50 per cent of adults who are overweight. Some "comrades" find it difficult to control their weight, are overweight and even Read More...
