Frontpage News (3259)
The Obama administration on Monday urged the U.S. Supreme Court to strike down a Texas abortion law that has shuttered nearly half the clinics in the state, saying the Republican-backed regulations would harm rather than protect women's health. Intervening in the Supreme Court's first abortion case since 2007, the administration said the new Texas rules for clinics and physicians who perform abortions are far more restrictive than other regulations upheld by the justices over the years. If allowed to take full effect, U.S. Solicitor General Donald Verrilliwrote, the law would close many more of the state's clinics and force hundreds of thousands of Texas women to travel great distances if they seek to terminate pregnancies.
"Those requirements are unnecessary to protect - indeed, would harm - women's health, and they would result in closure of three quarters of the abortion clinics in the state," Verrilli wrote. The administration's "friend of the court" brief siding with the clinics challenging the law comes in one of the most politically charged disputes this presidential election year. The case does not test the fundamental right to abortion established by the court's 1973 Roe v. Wade decision, but could impact women's access to abortion services nationwide. Depending on how the justices rule, they could encourage, or dissuade, other states to impose regulations.
The British government said it was seeking to hold talks with doctors in its state-funded health service in a last-ditch bid to avert a series of mass walkouts, potentially the first such strikes for four decades. Junior doctors, or doctors in training who represent just over half of all doctors in the National Health Service, said on Monday they would stage a 24-hour stoppage next week, followed by two further 48-hour strikes. It will affect non-emergency care and lead to the cancellations of many operations. Doctors' strikes are rare in Britain. The last time junior doctors took industrial action was in 1975 over non-payment for work done outside the standard 40-hour working week. A new contract was agreed the next year.
Planned walkouts before Christmas were suspended to allow for further talks in the dispute which centres on pay and conditions, but on Monday the doctors' union, the British Medical Association (BMA), said these discussions had failed to make progress. "In order for them (the strikes) to be called off, the government would have to recognise the deeply held concerns of junior doctors and be able to go rather further than it has been able to push itself over Christmas," Mark Porter, the BMA chairman told BBC Radio.
Professor Isaac Adewole, Minister of Health has confirmed the spread of Lassa Fever across 10 states in the past 6 weeks and also stated that 40 people have been confirmed dead. The states affected include Bauchi, Nasarawa, Niger, Taraba, Kano, Rivers, Edo, Plateau, Gombe and Oyo state. “In the last six weeks Nigeria has been experiencing Lassa fever outbreak which so far has affected 10 states in the country, " Adewole said.
“The states affected include Bauchi, Nasarawa, Niger, Taraba, Kano, Rivers, Edo, Plateau, Gombe and Oyo state. “The total number so far reported is 86 and 40 deaths with the mortality rate of 45%. “Our laboratories have confirmed 22 cases so far, indicative of a new round trip of Lassa fever outbreak,” he said.nThe minister has since listed a number of safety measures taken by the Federal Ministry of Health to manage further spread and also reduce mortality among those affected.
Source: Pulse Nigeria
The threat to sack the striking doctors in Osun State may be carried out starting from Monday. Governor Rauf Aregbesola gave the hint of what might befall the doctors in Osogbo on Thursday while speaking at the 75th birthday anniversary of the founding President of the Nigeria Labour Congress, Hassan Sunmonu.nThe governor said he was surprised that despite his efforts to persuade the doctors, who commenced the ongoing strike on September 28, 2015, they had stuck to their guns.
As part of its effort to ensure that tenets of good pharmacy practice is strictly adhered to, the Pharmacy Society of Nigeria (PSN) has warned pharmacists in all cadres to be ready to comply with payment of their practicing fees in view of section (14(1) of the PCN Act or face conviction. In a statement made available to Newswatch Times, the National President of PSN, Pharm. Ahmed Ibrahim Yakasai, stressed that section (14(1) of the Pharmaceutical Council of Nigeria (PCN) Act stipulates that conviction is penalty for payment defaulters.
Section (14(1) of the PCN Act states: “No registered person shall practice as a pharmacist in any year unless he has paid to the Council in respect of that year, the appropriate practicing fee which shall be due every January. “It is important to inform members of the PSN that after due consultation with the PSN NEC, the PCN has taken a bold decision to invoke the provisions of section 14(6) of the PCN Act which posits that “any pharmacist who in respect of any year without paying the practicing fee practices as such is guilty of an offence and is liable on conviction,” Yakasai said.
The Minister of State for Health, Dr. Osagie Ehanire has advised health records officers in the country to improve on their services in order to make quality healthcare available to Nigerians. He said this yesterday when he visited the headquarters of the Health Records Officers Registration Board of Nigeria in Abuja. He urged the board to work on its members saying the medical records department is the first that a patient goes to in a hospital, and the attitude of the personnel there could discourage or encourage the patient to access care in the hospital.
Sequel to an invitation to a meeting with the management on the 6th of January 2016, The Joint Health Sector unions (JOHESU), Federal Medical Center umuahia chapter has agreed to suspend its 7 Day ultimatum by Monday. This position was made known by the NANNM Chapter Chairman Mr Jude Unam. According to the NANNM Chairman, the management has promised to meet their demands in the January salary payment. He added that "by next week, JOHESU and the management would visit Abuja for a fact finding mission. He warned that if their demands are not met as at the time January salary would be paid, they would be left with no other option than to down tools without any further notice
You would recall that earlier agreements reached between JOHESU and the internal management up till date yielded nothing tangible. The agreements include payment of 2013 promotion arrears, payment of skipping arrears, Resuming payment of uniform allowances for nurses which ceased sometime ago as against extant circulars and payment of teachng allowance to officers on CONHESS 7 & 8 which was removed on the first quarter of 2014 and promised for it to be restored at end of the year. The JOHESU chapter of the FMC Umuahia had on 6th December 2015 resolved that a 14 day ultimatum be given to the management in accordance with labour laws relating to industrial conflict resolution mechanisms.
Ogun State Government, western Nigeria, has directed that all owners of private health facilities operating within the State must revalidate or register their facilities with the Department of Hospital Services, State Ministry of Health at Oke–Mosan in Abeokuta. The State Commissioner for Health, Dr. Babatunde Ipaye, stated that the step is necessary in order to enhance sanity and eradicate quackery in the state health sector. The release made available to the Ministry’s Press Officer, Mrs. Ebunlomo Taiyese, had it that all Medical Centres, Maternity Homes, Medical Laboratories, Diagnostic Centres, Physiotherapist Clinic, Mortuaries and Alternative Medicines Practitioners across the State should revalidate their facilities latest before 31 March, 2016.
According to the release, the exercise was to ensure proper monitoring, quality assurance and regulation of practice of medical professionals in both public and private sectors. The exercise also seek to screen out all unqualified persons that had fraudulently registered and are running private health facilities in and around the State. The release also has it that Continue Medical Education (CME) would be organized to update the professionals like Doctors, Nurses, Midwives and Medical Laboratory Scientists operating private health facilities in Ogun State.
Malaria-carrying parasites in parts of Cambodia have developed resistance to a major drug used to treat the disease in Southeast Asia, according to research published on Thursday in The Lancet Infectious Diseases journal. The drug piperaquine, used in combination with the drug artemisinin, has been the main form of malaria treatment in Cambodia since 2008. The combination is also one of the few treatments still effective against multi drug-resistant malaria which has emerged inSoutheast Asia in recent years, and which experts fear may spread to other parts of the world.
"(Treatment) failures are caused by both artemisinin and piperaquine resistance, and commonly occur in places where dihydroartemisinin–piperaquine has been used in the private sector," researchers said. Artemisinin resistance has been found in five countries in Southeast Asia - Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar, Thailand and Vietnam. Resistance to both artemisinin and drugs used in combination with it has developed in parts of Cambodia and Thailand. Experts are particularly concerned that artemisinin resistance will spread to sub-Saharan Africa where about 90 percent of malaria cases and deaths occur.
Unqualified personnel flood government hospitals as health record officers as less than 20 % are qualified and licensed to take and keep records, Registrar of the Health Records Officers Registration Board of Nigeria, Alhaji Mohammed Ibrahim Mami has said. He stated this yesterday when the Minister of State for Health, Dr. Osagie Ehanire visited the headquarters of the Health Records Officers Registration Board of Nigeria in Abuja. Mami said hospitals and clinics in the country are still far from getting maximum impact of the board because they recruit untrained persons to man health records departments, adding that there are few trained health records managers to meet the needs and expertise necessary for efficient health records management.
He lamented that the country’s health records management cannot attract meaningful international and regional recognised practice if it does not measure up to standardised heath information system. Mami urged the minister to give a directive that institutions and persons engaging in electronic health records system should meet certain standards before being employed or going into operation. The registrar also called on the minister to develop a memo to the National Council of Health seeking to compel every health facility in the country to engage trained and licensed health information managers to manage it records department.
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Bill Gates and Jeff Bezos have invested more than 100 million dollars in a new cancer test. Grail, the company developing the test, said on Tuesday in Beijing that the method was a universal blood test to identify early-stage cancers in people with no symptoms. Jay Flatley, Illumina Chief Executive, who would serve as chairman of Grail, said the technology was aimed at detecting newly-forming cancers, and treat them at an earlier stage to increase the chances of survival.
He said the company started this new test 18 months ago, and that it was estimated to take at least an additional year of research and development to refine it. Flatley said the process was being carried out through a technique called a “liquid biopsy’’. “It scans patients’ blood streams for signs of cancer DNA, which can indicate that a tumor is forming, even if a doctor can’t see it on a scan and the patient hasn’t
Lassa Fever: Death Toll Rises To 41 From 93 Suspected Cases – Minister
The Federal Government says Lassa fever has claimed 41 lives from 93 reported cases in 10 states of the country. The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) recalls that the federal government on Friday put the death toll at 40 out of 86 reported cases of Lassa fever outbreak in same 10 states. The number of the suspected cases also rose from 86 last week to 93. Prof. Isaac Adewole, the Minister of Health, confirmed this in Abuja on Tuesday at a joint ministerial news conference on the update of the outbreak of the disease.
However, Adewole said there were no new confirmed cases or death in the last 48 hours. He did not disclose the state from which the additional life was lost. “In the last 48 hours the government raised a four-man expert committee, chaired by Prof. Michael Asuzu, to visit Kano, Niger and Bauchi, the three most endemic states. “The committee will embark on a fact finding mission, assess the current situation, document response experiences, identify gaps and proffer recommendations on how to prevent future occurrences,’’ he said.
The dreaded lassa fever on Thursday claimed the life a medical doctor at the Braithwaite Memorial Specialist Hospital (BMSH), Port Harcourt, Dr. Ehivai Njamala. The death of Njamala brings to three, the number of persons who have been killed by the disease since its outbreak in Rivers State in December 2015. Chairman of the Nigeria Medical Association (NMA) in the state, Dr. Duro Green, who disclosed this to newsmen in Port Harcourt, said the medical doctor contracted the disease while treating patients at the Disease Control Unit in BMSH.
Green used the opportunity to announced the commencement of a three-day warning strike by the NMA following the kidnap of two medical doctors in the state few days ago. Dr. Ib Aprioku, a consultant with the Braithwaite Memorial Specialist Hospital (BMSH), Port Harcourt, was kidnapped on Sunday, January 10, 2016, while Dr Isaac Opurum, the director in charge of Community Health Services in the Rivers State Primary Health Care Management Board, was kidnapped in the early hours of yesterday from his residence in the state capital.
Declaring the end of the most recent outbreak of Ebola virus disease in Liberia and saying all known chains of transmission had been stopped in West Africa, the World Health Organization (WHO) yesterday hinted that new flare-ups are likely to occur. This was made known in a statement obtained by our correspondent in New York from the office of Dr Alex Gasasira, WHO Representative in Liberia. The statement warned that the job is not over, stressing that more flare-ups are expected and that strong surveillance and response systems would be critical in the months to come.
It would be recalled that Liberia was first declared free of Ebola transmission in May 2015, but the virus was re-introduced twice since then, with the latest flare-up in November. The United Nations health agency however commended the West African governments and people on their effective response to this recent re-emergence of Ebola, adding that the rapid cessation of the flare-up was a concrete demonstration of the governments’ strengthened capacity to manage disease outbreaks.
