Health news

• Australians urged to get whooping cough vaccination as infections rise more than tenfold in year

  12-09-2024 06:05
  Health authorities say infants are at greatest risk so pregnant women, parents and others in close contact with babies should be vaccinatedFollow our Australia news live blog for latest updatesGet our breaking news email, free app or daily news podcastHealth authorities across Australia are urging people to get vaccinated as cases of pertussis, commonly known as whooping cough, continue to surge.The latest national data shows more than 26,700 cases reported so far in 2024, compared with 2,451 ca
  
  Read more

• Ahlia says her GP ‘laughed in her face’ when she asked for a water birth – and that weight stigma in pregnancy has to stop

  09-11-2024 20:00
  
  Australian researchers propose a new model to reduce ‘mum shaming’ over body size, which has negative health outcomes for mother and childGet our breaking news email, free app or daily news podcastWhen Ahlia* was waiting to check in for a routine pregnancy appointment, she says a receptionist walked by calling out directions to gestational diabetes education – then looked at her, waiting for Ahlia to follow.“I’m not here for that,” Ahlia recalls saying in fron
  
  Read more

• ‘I had a full-blown relapse’: problem gambler allowed into Victorian pokies clubs despite self-exclusion

  09-11-2024 15:00
  
  Bree Hughes says state’s safeguards to curb gambling are a ‘joke’ after she realised very few venues checked if she was on the self-excluding listFollow our Australia news live blog for latest updatesGet our breaking news email, free app or daily news podcastAfter Bree Hughes signed herself up to Victoria’s pubs and clubs pokies self-exclusion program, she didn’t go into any venues for several months.“I was worried about what might happen if I tried to enter,&
  
  Read more

• Sydney homes flooded after water pipeline bursts – as it happened

  08-11-2024 07:48
  
  This blog is now closed.‘It was just coming through the window’: wave of water rushes into Sydney homes after pipe burstsGet our breaking news email, free app or daily news podcastRacism, colonialism ‘driving Indigenous self-harm’Australia’s dark colonial past and ongoing racism are driving self-harm in Indigenous communities, according to a respected Aboriginal psychologist.That whole process has left communities suffering from intergenerational trauma, disadvantag
  
  Read more

• Advertisement

• Shrinkflation a ‘difficult decision’ for manufacturers, inquiry told – as it happened

  07-11-2024 07:43
  
  This blog is now closedAlbanese says Trump call ‘very constructive’ as Dutton calls US president-elect ‘not somebody to be scared of’Get our breaking news email, free app or daily news podcastFormer prime minister Malcolm Turnbull, who had some colourful moments in his relationship with Donald Trump in his first presidency, is up now being colourful on the ABC. He says the Australian prime minister “has to stand up for Australia and not follow the conventional appro
  
  Read more

• The sunscreen myth: could it really be causing skin cancer? | Antiviral

  06-11-2024 15:00
  
  Overblown concerns about potential dangers of a common chemical threaten to undermine scientific evidence to the contraryBecause of his job as a dermatologist, Dr Deshan Sebaratnam frequently gets asked questions by friends, family and strangers about skin treatments. But lately, he says, he has been confronted by “a lot of myths around sunscreens”, especially on his social media feed.Among the most frequent is “that sunscreen can actually cause skin cancer”, says Sebarat
  
  Read more

• Australians’ appetite for ketamine hits record high as alcohol consumption drops

  06-11-2024 15:00
  
  Wastewater monitoring reveals cannabis is most widely used illegal drug, with use in regional areas double that in citiesFollow our Australia news live blog for latest updatesGet our breaking news email, free app or daily news podcastAustralians are consuming less cocaine and alcohol than they were last year while ketamine use is at an all-time high, according to levels of drugs detected in sewers.The Australian Criminal Intelligence Commission released its latest national wastewater drug monito
  
  Read more

• Morrison and Abbott praise Trump – as it happened

  06-11-2024 09:17
  This blog is now closedFormer PMs praise Trump’s ‘self-belief’ and ‘assertiveness’ ahead of likely US election victoryGet our breaking news email, free app or daily news podcastThere was some seriously colourful language in Senate estimates yesterday, but in this case the media regulator found radio hosts’ words were a step too far. Sarah Martin reports on what the Greens senator Sarah Hanson-Young described as “revolting, sexist, racist, misogynistic, d
  
  Read more

• Advertisement

• In an era of remarkable cancer advances, getting a second opinion can help guide choices and provide valuable reassurance | Ranjana Srivastava

  05-11-2024 15:00
  Faced with a life-threatening condition, sometimes the best treatment may lie behind a comprehensive second opinion“Please see this patient for an urgent second opinion,” pleaded the letter on my desk.But when I read the referral, it became clear that the patient was not looking for a second opinion as much as confirmation that she did not have cancer. Her diagnosis, however, was evident – and curable. What she needed was good communication and a way forward.Sign up for a weekl
  
  Read more

• ‘Deplorable’: nurse slammed therapy doll dementia patient believed was real baby on table, NSW tribunal hears

  05-11-2024 15:00
  Sudiksha Ahuja found guilty of unsatisfactory professional conduct and her nursing registration cancelledFollow our Australia news live blog for latest updatesGet our breaking news email, free app or daily news podcastAn aged care nurse who slammed a dementia patient’s therapy doll on a table and laughed at the distressed patient who believed it was a real baby has been found to have been “callous and deplorable”.Sudiksha Ahuja was found guilty in August of unsatisfactory profe
  
  Read more

• Watt confirms Labor considering releasing sealed section of robodebt report – as it happened

  05-11-2024 07:51
  
  This blog is now closedNo relief for borrowers as Reserve Bank leaves interest rates on hold at 4.35%Get our breaking news email, free app or daily news podcast‘We need to extend the average time people stay in our defence force,’ says Matt KeoughThe defence personnel minister, Matt Keough, has also been talking about that retention and renumeration package for defence.We need to extend the average time people stay in our defence force.That does mean it had a vulnerability. We’
  
  Read more

• ‘It’s kind of whispered in corridors’: women being forced into underground abortion networks in rural NSW, study finds

  04-11-2024 15:00
  
  Small but influential number of medical practitioners leave pregnant women unable to access terminations in many parts of the stateFull Story podcast: the abortion culture war and its consequencesFollow our Australia news live blog for latest updatesGet our breaking news email, free app or daily news podcastA small but influential number of medical practitioners who obstruct abortion care or are uninterested in providing it are leaving women unable to access abortion in many parts of rural New S
  
  Read more

• More than 5.4m extra doctor visits were bulk billed last year after incentives boost, health minister says

  03-11-2024 15:00
  
  Increase follows Albanese government tripling financial rewards for GPs to bulk bill pensioners, concession card holders and childrenFollow our Australia news live blog for latest updatesGet our breaking news email, free app or daily news podcastMore than 5.4m additional visits to the doctor were bulk billed in the past year due to a boost to incentives, according to figures released by the health minister, Mark Butler.The proportion of all doctors’ visits that are bulk billed has increase
  
  Read more

• ‘Will haunt me for life’: nurse suspended over Covid lockdown baby shower in Melbourne aged care home before deadly outbreak

  03-11-2024 01:42
  
  Father-to-be was unaware of planned party at Epping Gardens aged care facility and stayed only five minutes, tribunal hearsFollow our Australia news live blog for latest updatesGet our breaking news email, free app or daily news podcastAn aged care nurse who attended a baby shower at a nursing home during a Covid lockdown has been suspended, telling a tribunal the mistake “will haunt me for the rest of my life”.Staff at the Epping Gardens aged care held a surprise baby shower in July
  
  Read more

• Sadness simmers inside this Melbourne hospital ward. But it’s a lifeline for people suffering a mental health crisis

  03-11-2024 00:00
  
  Guardian Australia was given access to a sealed-off section of St Vincent’s to find out why other hospitals are copying what it doesFollow our Australia news live blog for latest updatesGet our breaking news email, free app or daily news podcastIt’s a Tuesday afternoon in the emergency department at one of Melbourne’s busiest public hospitals, St Vincent’s. Over a loudspeaker, a nurse announces a code grey: an attack on a staff member. It punctuates a cacophony of yelling
  
  Read more

• The scientist who tested his revolutionary medicine on his own brain cancer: ‘It seemed worth it to give it a crack’

  02-11-2024 20:00
  
  Richard Scolyer was one of the world’s leading melanoma researchers when he was struck with a brain tumour. Facing likely death, his team made him a guinea pig for his own medicineSign up for a weekly email featuring our best readsRichard Scolyer was fully engaged in the business of living when he suddenly received a death sentence. A person more alive would be hard to find. As an endurance athlete competing across the globe, he was in peak physical condition. As one of the world’s l
  
  Read more

• The Melbourne wellness club where the wealthy breathe premium air – and seek to defy ageing

  01-11-2024 15:00
  
  Australia is gripped by a cost-of-living crisis but inside Saint Haven you wouldn’t know it. Owner Tim Gurner speaks about his passion project, his fear of dying and his infamous avocado commentsInside the luxury club is a set of small capsules. Inside each small capsule is a seat, a desk to work at – and a steady flow of premium air. Air for the wealthy – those untouched by interest rate rises or rent increases. Air with 99% oxygen.“Regular air has only 21%” the co
  
  Read more

• Burning out: how Australia’s bid to cut smoking rates exploded into suburban tobacco wars

  01-11-2024 15:00
  
  With the illicit market worth at least $2bn a year and the rise of illegal vapes, experts say the status quo is failingSign up for a weekly email featuring our best readsThere are three tobacconists in a strip of no more than a dozen shops on the same side of a street in Melbourne’s west. Earlier this year, someone reached between the metal bars protecting one shop, smashed the front window and flung a molotov cocktail inside.Eight days later, a driver rammed the security screen at a secon
  
  Read more

• Australian private hospitals say government review shows sector isn’t profitable as it struggles to ‘keep surgery doors open’

  01-11-2024 07:44
  Sector says review shows need for reform of funders and providers, however experts question potential selection bias of voluntary data Follow our Australia news live blog for latest updatesGet our breaking news email, free app or daily news podcastPrivate hospitals say an Australia government review of the sector’s financial viability show there is a need for structural reform of the relationship between funders and providers, but experts question whether the voluntary data provided to the
  
  Read more

• Victoria to end automatic licence loss for drivers testing positive for medicinal cannabis

  01-11-2024 00:37
  
  Magistrates will have sentencing discretion for drivers who test positive for THC, if they hold a valid prescriptionFollow our Australia news live blog for latest updatesGet our breaking news email, free app or daily news podcastVictorian medicinal cannabis users will no longer automatically lose their licence if they’re caught driving with traces of the drug in their system.Instead, magistrates have been given the power to exercise sentencing discretion for drivers who test positive for t
  
  Read more

• Anti-abortion advocate Joanna Howe banned from South Australia’s upper house for alleged ‘threatening’ tactics towards politicians

  31-10-2024 09:19
  
  Upper house president Terry Stephens says of ‘highest concern’ is suggestion Howe attempted to ‘improperly influence the free performance’ of MLCs’ dutiesGet our breaking news email, free app or daily news podcastThe anti-abortion activist Joanna Howe has been banned from South Australia’s upper house after its president revealed in parliament that he had received several complaints from MLCs alleging she had used “insults and threatening and intimidatin
  
  Read more

• Victoria to cut more than 130 bushfire forest service jobs – As it happened

  31-10-2024 08:08
  This blog is now closedPeter Dutton’s office asked Gina Rinehart’s Hancock Prospecting for flight on private jetGet our breaking news email, free app or daily news podcastYoung man dies in multi-vehicle crash in Queensland’s Bundaberg RegionA fatal multi-vehicle traffic crash last night at Elliot in Queensland’s Bundaberg Region last night is being investigated by the police forensic crash Unit.All travel has been appropriately declared and is a matter of public record.Th
  
  Read more

• NSW Health issues public alert over potential virus risk at Sydney cosmetic clinic

  31-10-2024 06:19
  Clients of now closed Fresh Cosmetic Clinic warned to get tested after possible exposure to blood-borne viruses such as hepatitis B, hepatitis C or HIVFollow our Australia news live blog for latest updatesGet our breaking news email, free app or daily news podcastNSW Health has issued a public health alert warning the clients of a Sydney cosmetic clinic to get tested for blood-borne viruses “due to infection control breaches in the clinic” where people who were not registered health
  
  Read more

• Curbing Australia’s salt intake with new WHO limits could save almost 3,000 lives in a decade, study says

  31-10-2024 00:30
  WHO food scientist says relying on voluntary measures to reduce salt in the country’s food supply is not enoughGet our breaking news email, free app or daily news podcast Australia’s voluntary food formulation guidelines are inadequate at preventing diet-related diseases such as heart attack and stroke, a World Health Organization food scientist has said.Dr Luz Maria De Regil made the comments off the back of a study published in the journal The Lancet Public Health on Thursday, whic
  
  Read more

• Anti-abortion activist Joanna Howe says she pressured South Australian MP to back out of voting deal

  30-10-2024 10:08
  
  Liberal MLC Jing Lee told parliament she felt pressured after ‘unexpected encounter with a very persistent visitor’ but didn’t name HoweGet our breaking news email, free app or daily news podcastThe anti-abortion activist Joanna Howe says she put pressure on the South Australian MP Jing Lee to back out of a voting deal on controversial “forced birth” legislation that proposed changes to the state’s abortion laws.But Howe also said she was not certain Lee was r
  
  Read more

• Attorney general considering releasing full robodebt report – As it happened

  30-10-2024 08:38
  
  This blog is now closedNacc to reconsider whether to investigate robodebt after ‘apprehended bias’ finding against commissionerGet our breaking news email, free app or daily news podcastMark Butler flags importance of an Australian CDC in future pandemic responsesThe federal health minister, Mark Butler, spoke to ABC News Breakfast this morning, after the Covid inquiry report was released yesterday.Currently, we’re the only developed country that doesn’t have that single
  
  Read more

• Drivers to escape punishment over medical cannabis under interim Victorian proposal

  30-10-2024 05:32
  
  Labor considering expert report’s call for judges to have discretion to not cancel licences of those using the drugFollow our Australia news live blog for latest updatesGet our breaking news email, free app or daily news podcastDrivers who use medicinal cannabis in Victoria will be able to remain behind the wheel under a proposed interim measure being considered by the state government.In an expert report tabled in parliament on Wednesday, the former magistrate Tony Parsons called on the g
  
  Read more

• Trauma surgeons sound grim warning on e-scooter danger at NSW inquiry

  30-10-2024 04:53
  ‘Very sharp increase’ in children arriving in emergency after crashes, doctors warn, as assessment of how to best legalise e-scooters continuesFollow our Australia news live blog for latest updatesGet our breaking news email, free app or daily news podcastChildren as young as five end up in hospital with e-scooter and e-bike injuries as officials warn growing use could further clog emergency rooms.As New South Wales contemplates how best to legalise the electric transport devices, do
  
  Read more

• ‘I couldn’t believe it’: routine GP checkup reveals 2kg tumour growing in Brisbane man’s liver

  30-10-2024 04:16
  
  Barrie Tibbetts was non-symptomatic before doctor noticed 67-year-old’s liver function test results were ‘slightly abnormal’ leading to discovery of tumour. Warning: contains graphic contentFollow our Australia news live blog for latest updatesGet our breaking news email, free app or daily news podcastA routine doctor’s checkup saved the life of a Brisbane retiree after an aggressive and rare tumour weighing 2kg was found in his liver.Father-of-three Barrie Tibbetts had n
  
  Read more

• Melbourne woman’s death after foraged mushroom dinner prompts coroner’s warning

  30-10-2024 03:50
  
  Loreta Maria Del Rossi died in May, a week after eating mushrooms foraged from her garden in BayswaterFollow our Australia news live blog for latest updatesGet our breaking news email, free app or daily news podcastA Melbourne woman has died after she and her son were poisoned by a homemade meal containing foraged mushrooms, prompting a warning from the coroner.The 98-year-old woman, Loreta Maria Del Rossi, died in hospital on 22 May, seven days after eating the meal.Sign up for Guardian Austral
  
  Read more

Follow @Health_News_AU on Twitter!