Victoria to overhaul health system after hospital safety review over baby deaths

Victoria’s health department is not giving quality and safety in healthcare the attention it needs to protect patients from harm, a hard-hitting review of hospital safety, published on Friday, has said.

The findings have prompted Victoria’s health minister, Jill Hennessy, to announce an overhaul of the state’s health system.

The review was led by the health program director at the Grattan Institute, Stephen Duckett, and was ordered after 11 newborn and stillborn deaths at Bacchus Marsh hospital were found to have been potentially avoidable.

The hospital’s maternity ward had a higher than average perinatal mortality rate despite catering for low-risk births, a previous review of the deaths and Djerriwarrh health services, which managed the hospital, found.

“Basically, we need a change in the culture and approach to monitoring safety and quality in Victoria,” Duckett told Guardian Australia.

“The health department in the past has left the safety and quality issue primarily to individual hospitals, and this meant many hospitals were left reinventing the wheel when it came to issues, and there was also a lack of support to those hospitals from the department.”

Duckett’s review found that many safety and quality issues identified across the state were due to cumulative budget cuts over time that had “gutted many departmental functions”.

“While the cuts were portrayed as improving government efficiency, the decline in the department’s ability to perform its core functions was lost to public view,” the report found.

Duckett said the cluster of baby deaths that prompted the review were harrowing and that his team’s recommendations, some of which have already been implemented, would help the department’s goal of eliminating avoidable harm to patients.

“When my daughter was born I cried for joy,” he said. “I can’t imagine what it must be like to lose a baby and then be told that death was potentially avoidable. The premise of this review was really to make sure we learn as much from those deaths as possible.”

Hennessy said on Friday the government accepted all recommendations made by the review. She announced a series of reforms, among them a new health information agency to overhaul the way data and information is shared across the health system; the creation of a Victorian Clinical Council to provide clinical expertise to government and health services; and that consultation would begin on a “duty of candour” law which would see health services made to apologise to any person harmed while receiving care and to explain what went wrong and what action would be taken.

Many of the reforms will be implemented within 12 months.

“We want to do everything we can to reduce avoidable harm in our hospitals, and make them as safe as they can possibly be,” Hennessy said.

“A goal of zero avoidable harm is an ambitious target, but one we have an obligation to do everything we can to achieve.”

She announced an additional $ 13m to fund the reforms, and the formation of a new agency, Safer Care Victoria, tasked with monitoring and improving quality and safety in the health system. The agency will be headed by world-leading clinician and researcher Prof Euan Wallace.

Victoria to overhaul health system after hospital safety review over baby deaths

My ‘insane’ Uncle Ed tried to kill Queen Victoria – he was treated with kindness | Penny Pepper

A young Queen Victoria rides out of the palace with her dashing husband. It’s June, and she is happy as the open carriage moves down Constitution Hill. Waiting on a grassy verge is a young man. Scarcely that – he’s a boy, just 18, with dark eyes and a baby face, short of stature and wearing a high top hat, as was fashionable in 1840. As the Queen draws closer he raises two pistols, determined to fire on the pregnant Victoria.

The young man is Edward Oxford, and he’s about to fulfil his dream of becoming notorious. Edward: my great, great, great uncle, who I fondly call Uncle Ed.

As ITV’s Victoria came to the season finale, I was relieved his story played out relatively true to what is known. Edward is described as “one of Cumberland’s creature’s”, part of the supposed Hanoverian plot against Victoria. But it is quickly revealed he is as a “half-witted pot boy from south of the river”, and that “the would-be assassin is completely insane”. Victoria wanted to hang him high, naturally.

Since unearthing this skeleton in my family closet, I feel a deep protectiveness – and relief that Edward’s attempted regicide came at a time when “lunatics” and the “criminally insane” were beginning to be treated more humanely.

Indicted for treason, he stood trial at the Old Bailey on 6 July 1840. If found guilty, he would hang, and his defence rested heavily on the ideas of being “innocent by reason of insanity”. The Old Bailey records of the trial are as full of intrigue and early Victorian melodrama as one could wish for, including the reading out of his notebooks, which exposed Uncle Ed’s pseudo-military fantasy society, Young England.

Reading through the statements and the endless legal ramblings, I find nuggets that allow me to unravel a sense of young Uncle Ed’s wayward personality. I follow a repeating echo, as I realise the case for his defence depends on making sure that he is insane. The records swiftly become a sensational feast of detail, especially where Edward’s father and grandfather are concerned. Both were known alcoholics. His grandad, John Oxford, described in one press report as a “black sailor of obscure origin”, died in Greenwich Naval hospital. At various times he believed he was the pope and other times St Peter.

Part of the Bedlam Exhibition held at the Wellcome Collection 2016. Photograph: Thomas SG Farnetti/Wellcome/Courtesy The Vacuum Cleaner and Hannah Hull

Edward’s father, George Oxford, is described as a “mulatto” and “the Tawny Beau” in press coverage. A keen indulger in laudanum, he was given to odd and violent outbursts, most often inflicted on his long-suffering wife, Edward’s mother, Hannah. There was also the time he brought the horse into the parlour for dinner …

It’s hard to know now if Edward shared this family “madness”, assuming you share the still-controversial belief in inherited mental ill-health. Endless witnesses reported his strange behaviour and mood swings. But Edward’s family and friends would have known that any exaggeration could only strengthen his claim to innocence.

Uncle Ed was found “innocent by reason of insanity”, suffering “a lesion of the will”. He was sentenced to be detained indefinitely at Bethlem Royal hospital – better known as Bedlam – in its latest home in Southwark. This was a time when pressure was growing for the proper care for the mentally ill, with supporters committed to the genuine idea of asylum and a removal of those individuals from prisons and the workhouse. This began with the County Asylums Act 1808.

Those with mental health issues are demonised, despised and disbelieved. They are too expensive for the welfare state

Edward flourished in this environment, and responded to regimes aiming for genuine care of the patient – “patient” at last replacing the earlier terms “lunatic”, “imbecile” and plain “inmate” – through the Lunacy Act of 1845. Edward’s frustrated intellect grasped all opportunities – he became a model patient, learning several languages fluently, finding skills as a painter, and becoming an unbeatable chess player. He thrived in that environment, when – as Mike Jay, co-curator of the Wellcome exhibition, Bedlam: The Asylum and Beyond – says in his recent Guardian piece: “The asylum became an emblem of social progress: a therapeutic community in which patients were to be treated with kindness.”

It’s tragic that there is very little sense of true asylum, of sanctuary, within today’s mental healthcare system. In the 20th century, care in the community made much of individuals’ rights to be looked after in their own homes (which, conveniently in the Thatcher era, was likely to be cheaper). Yet many within the mental health system – myself included – feel that the baby might have been thrown out with the bathwater. These days, those with mental health issues are demonised, despised and disbelieved. They are too expensive for the welfare state.

John O’Donoghue, author of the award-winning memoir Sectioned, is a veteran patient of the remnants of those old hospitals. As he says: “The closure of the old Victorian asylums has yielded mixed results … Yes, they could be places of neglect and abuse, patients left to rot … but they also afforded sanctuary, the kind of open-ended humane treatment modern practice seems to have great difficulty in providing.”

Since my own teenage years I’ve experienced ongoing mental distress, uneasily wearing many labels given and changed. Clinical depression. Anxiety disorder. Manic depression. Emotionally unstable disorder. When I read the details of Uncle Ed in all the literature, I wonder what his label would be now. Would it help him any more than “lesion of the will”? That he was troubled, unhappy and in emotional pain is clear, and yes, I sat tight-lipped ready in his defence as this final episode of Victoria unfolded. But this is a royal soap opera. Edward is the pot boy working-class “lunatic”.

One day I’ll tell his story. Bring him fully to life, track our shared heritage from the mysterious black sailor and take him wholly back into the family embrace – and celebrate his happy ending in Australia.

My ‘insane’ Uncle Ed tried to kill Queen Victoria – he was treated with kindness | Penny Pepper

Why I’ve got a beef with Ian Botham | Victoria Coren Mitchell

Last Sunday morning, Sir Ian Botham’s penis was on my doorstep.

The world is changing fast; millions of others found Sir Ian’s penis on their laptop, Kindle or mobile phone. But I still love the elegance of a printed page, so the cricket legend’s john thomas was delivered to me the old-fashioned way. At dawn. Through the letter-box. With a bang. I haven’t finished. When I woke up, I was amazed by what I found all over the mat. (I know I already said it was left on the doorstep, but let’s just assume I get two copies of the Sun on Sunday, and move on to the next paragraph.)

Last Sunday, news that Ian Botham does not suffer from erectile dysfunction was splashed across the front of Britain’s cheeriest tabloid. The great sportsman has been having impotence treatment, he “bravely revealed”, but only as a preventative measure. He urged men to throw off pride issues around penile function and confidently seek treatment for impotence – but not men like himself, because he doesn’t suffer from it. No siree. No Sir-Ian.

“I’m a male and men do have problems and you have to front up to them,” said Botham, adding: “I don’t have a problem.”

Nevertheless, Ian Botham has been undergoing Vigore Linear Shockwave Therapy. He mentioned this several times, while bravely revealing his total lack of a problem. It doesn’t say he was paid for this, although he does also appear on the website for Vigore Linear Shockwave Therapy saying: “I’m happy to recommend Vigore offered by the Regenerative Medical Group and they will provide a screening first to ensure you are suitable. Please call 0800 999 2662 or email admin@vigore.co.uk for further information.”

It’s certainly possible that Sir Ian is doing all this for free, in order to encourage men to have no shame about undergoing such treatment. After all, he is keen to see the end of the embarrassment albatross: “There’s nothing to be embarrassed about,” he assured potential patients in his interview. Not that Ian Botham would need to be embarrassed anyway, because, as he quickly clarified: “I didn’t need the treatment.”

We would already know that Ian Botham has no trouble in that department if we’d ever seen a photograph of his erect penis on Twitter, which of course we haven’t, because the person who put a photograph of their erect penis on Ian Botham’s Twitter feed with the note “What are you thinking..xx” was a hacker.

But we trust him. He volunteered to have his privates zapped with shockwaves for no motive other than insurance against the possibility of erectile problems in the future. It may sound grisly but it’s better than using Viagra, argues Sir Ian. Not that he has ever used Viagra himself. (“I have never needed to,” he explains.)

Poor men. It seems like they have to have erections all the time these days. Ubiquitous internet porn access shows a relentless gallery of unrealistic women demanding to be satisfied around the clock. The documentary Brought Up On Porn, released on BBC iPlayer last Monday, reveals that one in four new erectile dysfunction patients is under 40, which seems to reflect the anxiety created by technology.

Latest news in London is that businessman Bradley Charvet, who is launching the Fellatio Cafe in Geneva this December, now hopes to open a branch in Marylebone. Yes, it is what you think: a cafe where men can receive oral sex while having a coffee. This is an appalling, dangerous and irresponsible idea. We drink far too much coffee already.

The prospective cafe’s name is disappointing. “The Fellatio Cafe”? They’re not even trying. I myself would have called it Cup And Saucy. But even Hot Drinks would have been better.

What about Just A Splash, An Extra Shot or Mine’s A Grande? Other possibilities (I have given this some thought) include The Daily Grind, Morning Glory, French Roast, Johnny Come Lattely, Our Coffee Sucks, The Foamy Lip, A Little Bit Of Sugar In Your Bowl, Fluid, The Drip Method, Cup And Balls, Cup This and Starsucks. I’ll leave it with you. Have a nice afternoon.

Where was I? Ah yes. I’m sure this ghastly cafe won’t open, though it really is opening in Geneva, but the very idea that a normal man might be expected to perform under such circumstances adds to the general taxing expectations (and the word “perform” itself is a stressful one, which should probably be phased out.)

So Ian Botham’s interview in last Sunday’s Sun was not “brave” at all: it was weedy, unhelpful and wrong. Correctly or incorrectly, people will assume he was paid for his Vigore endorsement and people are pretty media-savvy. They’ll know a company like that would look long and hard (yes, yes) for a celebrity who suffered from erectile dysfunction and the closest they could evidently find is someone who’s careful to state over and over again that he definitely doesn’t. The company could find nobody who would talk openly about it without this tub-thumping proviso. And celebrities will do anything.

Therefore the notion that it’s taboo is emphatically reinforced! And it’s reinforced alongside the weird possibility of extra guilt and regret for any impotent men who didn’t have shockwave treatment as a “preventative measure”.

Of course there should be no shame in this sort of thing. The human body is a beautiful, complicated, interesting ecosystem; glitches happen. Impotence causes such terrible sadness, loneliness and frustration, it’s a proper wide-scale tragedy that thoughts of ignominy and humiliation prevent anyone from either seeking help or living a proud and happy life regardless.

That Ian Botham would despise the idea of anyone thinking he has “a problem”, yet agree to be the man who talks publicly about impotence anyway … if there is shame in anything, it’s that.

Why I’ve got a beef with Ian Botham | Victoria Coren Mitchell

Victoria Derbyshire diagnosed with breast cancer

Victoria Derbyshire, the broadcaster, has disclosed she has been diagnosed with breast cancer.

Derbyshire, the Sony Award-winning BBC presenter, mentioned she would be undergoing a mastectomy in the weeks to come.

She advised fans she will proceed to existing her information programme for the duration of therapy exactly where possible, as she praised medical staff for their assistance.

Hi, have been diagnosed with breast cancer &amp am possessing a mastectomy in a handful of wks. Family, pals, work &amp NHS employees are getting brilliant 1/two

— Victoria Derbyshire (@vicderbyshire) August 19, 2015

Will be performing the programme as much as achievable for the duration of treatment in the months ahead 2/two

— Victoria Derbyshire (@vicderbyshire) August 19, 2015

Derbyshire, 46, at present hosts a everyday news and recent affairs programme for the BBC, and has previously worked on Radio five Live.

She was immediately inundated with messages of assistance from supporters and colleagues, wishing her a speedy recovery.

A spokesman for the BBC stated: “We wish Victoria a full and speedy recovery and seem forward to having her back complete time as soon as possible.”

According to the NHS, breast cancer is the most common type of cancer in the Uk and can be taken care of if caught early adequate.

In 2011, just below 50,000 females have been diagnosed with invasive breast cancer. Most women who get it, 8 out of ten, are over 50.

• A single drink a day increases breast cancer danger by 15 per cent

Victoria Derbyshire diagnosed with breast cancer

Victoria Derbyshire State of Grace radio overview

Victoria Derbyshire: handled the programme with ‘careful dignity’. Photograph: Richard Saker for the Observer

Victoria Derbyshire (five Dwell) | iPlayer

State of Grace (Radio 4) | iPlayer

Back in February 2011, on the usually likable if unaccountably vilified – but she is, following all, a female – Victoria Derbyshire morning display, listeners around the nation slowed their vehicles, paused mid-potter, turned up a bit late for lunches. They had been held in thrall by a mobile phone-in on alcoholism, and especially a phone from a physician, Rachel, who admitted quietly on air that she was just cracking open her third can of Guinness that morning.

Derbyshire at some point tracked her down, and she became what’s called a pal of the programme. Each time she spoke, the phones were deluged by calls, reacting to searing tender honesty from a just-working alcoholic and what emerged was a tale of a lot of other professional mothers held in the savage thrall of… properly, either a way of life-selection addiction or an illness, about which there was a lot heated debate. What was undeniable was that the programme assisted move the argument far from the stereotypes of pineapple-nosed meths males, and into the milieu of chintzy (or cosy, or minimalist) middle-class living rooms everywhere, and highlight a hidden nation coping towards hope with each the bottle and full-time jobs – solicitors, managers, anaesthetists. Standard mother’s contact: “I usually try out to seem great, smell wonderful, get the children to school. But I’m just pouring my very first glass of wine of the morning. And I would often felt I was on my very own, special.”

Rachel, final time we heard from her, had been clean, giggling and smart, and signally failing to slurp from a bottle at ten in the morning. Rachel, not her real name, died in her rest in excess of the Easter weekend. She was 45, and left a companion and daughter. She had relapsed, briefly, just ahead of Easter. Derbyshire knew, went to the funeral, but it was only last week that her household made a decision the news must come out. It was a mesmerising programme, featuring callers who said Rachel’s contribution had, in absolutely no tiny way, saved their lives. Tears have been shed. Derbyshire dealt with the whole with the careful dignity it deserved – there was some laughter, but a chilling pall hung more than the programme of needless waste. Crucially, there was no knee-jerk condemnation – we would moved far beyond that – but compassion and sincere, subtle debate, and I only want other morning telephone-in (radio and Television) programmes could deal with related levels of, if you’ll excuse me, sobriety: an impassioned and vital tale.

Grace Dent: identified ‘some superb interviewees’. Photograph: Chris Floyd

Grace Dent had some exciting with her identify in State of Grace – a flimsy ample premise you may well believe, but she actually created it operate. She hardly harped on at all about wishing she’d in childhood had a “normal” title – her choice would have been Joanne, as in the lass from t’Human League – but as an alternative set about resolutely discovering some superb interviewees. She spoke to Olivia “damegrace” Cowley at the Royal Ballet about, simply, grace of motion, and fascinating it was, and quizzed wonderful movie historian Stella Bruzzi on Grace Kelly. Bruzzi came up with the workably non-pat theory that Kelly was hogtied, in her time, among becoming Marilyn Monroe and getting Audrey Hepburn – neither vamp nor ingenue, she was famously described as “also excellent” by James Stewart, which helps clarify his otherwise mesmerising decision to reject her throughout considerably of Rear Window. Best, additional Bruzzi, she was not. She slept with practically all her foremost males, and the list helps make some reading through: Clark Gable, Bing, Ray Milland, William Holden, Oleg Cassini – and was sent shut to panic when Monaco’s courtiers tentatively suggested a test for virginity. A great minor programme, hugely aided all through by the laughing, gallus presence of Grace Maxwell, who nursed Scots singer (and husband) Edwyn Collins back to eventual wellness after his devastating brain haemorrhage, and informed her tale with wit, warts and a thoroughly refreshing lack of mawkishness or self-pity. As, indeed, had Rachel.

Victoria Derbyshire State of Grace radio overview

Salmonella outbreak in Victoria prompts raw-egg warning

Victorians have been warned of the higher risk of consuming raw or undercooked eggs after far more than 200 people fell unwell from salmonella.

Wellness authorities have linked two eating places to raw-egg foods using goods from western Victorian supplier Green Eggs. The Division of Setting and Principal Industries has limited the sale of eggs from the Green Eggs farm close to Ararat until finally further cleaning and hygiene measures are taken.

Much more than 200 men and women grew to become ill with gastroenteritis right after eating at the Bottle of Milk restaurant in Torquay, and a handful of others suffered the identical fate following dining at St Kilda’s Newmarket hotel.

There have been other isolated situations, and people affected have ranged in age from 9 months to more than 65 years.

Chief well being officer Dr Rosemary Lester says Green Eggs, which supplies a assortment of Victorian eateries, markets and supermarkets, is nevertheless becoming investigated as the definite supply and testing will get a few days. Lester warned that food and drinks containing raw and undercooked eggs, which includes mayonnaise, aioli, egg nog and tiramisu, had previously been linked to salmonella outbreaks in Victoria.

“These food items can be a chance, especially for the elderly and people with lowered immunity, youngsters and pregnant girls,” she mentioned.

Lester said cooking eggs until finally they have been sizzling all the way through manufactured them safe from contaminants such as salmonella.

Any individual who has purchased Green Eggs is advised to use them for cooked dishes only, and eating places wanting to put together raw-egg foods or dressings ought to get their eggs elsewhere even though alterations at the farm are being produced. Lester stated men and women necessary to check out that eggs were clean and without having cracks before getting them.

Washing eggs at residence is also not advised simply because it can make it simpler for bacteria to penetrate the shell.

Salmonella outbreak in Victoria prompts raw-egg warning

Salmonella outbreak in Victoria prompts raw-egg warning

Victorians have been warned of the greater chance of eating raw or undercooked eggs soon after much more than 200 individuals fell ill from salmonella.

Health authorities have linked two restaurants to raw-egg food items employing products from western Victorian supplier Green Eggs. The Department of Setting and Major Industries has limited the sale of eggs from the Green Eggs farm close to Ararat until added cleaning and hygiene measures are taken.

More than 200 folks grew to become sick with gastroenteritis soon after consuming at the Bottle of Milk restaurant in Torquay, and a handful of other folks suffered the identical fate after dining at St Kilda’s Newmarket hotel.

There have been other isolated situations, and men and women impacted have ranged in age from nine months to more than 65 many years.

Chief health officer Dr Rosemary Lester says Green Eggs, which supplies a variety of Victorian eateries, markets and supermarkets, is even now getting investigated as the definite supply and testing will get a few days. Lester warned that food and drinks containing raw and undercooked eggs, which includes mayonnaise, aioli, egg nog and tiramisu, had previously been linked to salmonella outbreaks in Victoria.

“These foods can be a chance, particularly for the elderly and people with lowered immunity, kids and pregnant ladies,” she mentioned.

Lester mentioned cooking eggs until finally they were scorching all the way by means of produced them risk-free from contaminants this kind of as salmonella.

Anyone who has purchased Green Eggs is advised to use them for cooked dishes only, and eating places wanting to put together raw-egg meals or dressings ought to get their eggs elsewhere whilst adjustments at the farm are becoming made. Lester mentioned people essential to check out that eggs have been clean and with no cracks prior to purchasing them.

Washing eggs at home is also not suggested simply because it helps make it less complicated for bacteria to penetrate the shell.

Salmonella outbreak in Victoria prompts raw-egg warning

Ambulance crisis: Victoria woman died of heatstroke following two-hour wait

An 85-year-previous lady with heatstroke died soon after a two-hour wait for an ambulance for the duration of last week’s heatwave, the ambulance union says.

Ambulance Workers Australia’s (AEA) Victorian secretary, Steve McGhie, says ambulance companies went into “meltdown” during final week’s heatwave.

“Even during reasonably quiet instances Victoria’s ambulance services is woefully inadequate. However, last week the technique went into meltdown,” McGhie said.

Hundreds of paramedics have been expected to converge on the Ambulance Victoria headquarters on Wednesday above their ongoing industrial dispute.

Paramedics reported delays of 7 hours and in depth ramping, in which a transported patient has a long wait in the automobile on arriving at hospital due to the fact there are no obtainable care areas or beds.

A single elderly patient waited nine hours on a stretcher for a bed at Northern hospital and no crews had been free of charge to attend a motorbike accident patient, who had skin missing from his encounter and a leg fracture, the AEA explained.

A spokesman for state wellness minister David Davis said the Coalition inherited an ambulance system in crisis and had since injected hundreds of thousands to recruit a lot more paramedics.

Ambulance Victoria chief executive Greg Sassella mentioned the organisation had been negotiating in very good faith to attain a meaningful enterprise agreement and wage improve end result.

He explained it remained in voluntary conciliation with the unions and their following meeting was scheduled for the end of this month.

The ambulance union claims its paramedics are the lowest paid in Australia and they could go interstate and earn almost $ 30,000 much more for carrying out the very same work.

The deputy opposition leader, James Merlino, explained the tragedy was however another instance of an ambulance program in crisis.

“Response times for code 1 emergencies have blown out every single yr of this government,” Merlino said on Wednesday.

“The government are however to acknowledge they designed the crisis and are but to react to it.”

Ambulance crisis: Victoria woman died of heatstroke following two-hour wait