Australian Medical Association

Transcript:      AMA President, Dr Andrew Pesce, with Deborah Cameron, ABC 702 Sydney, Thursday 9 September 2010

Subject:           Indigenous health policy; AMA Indigenous Health Report Card

AMA President, Dr Andrew Pesce, said today that all parties and Independents in the new Parliament have a unique opportunity to work together to make real improvements in health outcomes and living conditions for Indigenous Australians.

Dr Pesce – accompanied by AMA Vice President, Dr Steve Hambleton, and AMA NT President, Dr Paul Bauert – has been in the Northern Territory this week meeting with health service providers and non-government organisations (NGOs) and visiting communities to experience first hand the delivery of health services to Indigenous Australians at the local level through successful models of care.

AMA President, Dr Andrew Pesce, today congratulated Prime Minister Julia Gillard on securing a minority Labor Government and urged her to put the health reform process at the top of her second term agenda.

Dr Pesce said that the health system and the health workforce remain under enormous pressure and in great need of the new funding and resources from the COAG Agreement and recent election promises.

MJA media release - Progress in childhood cancer is a good news story. Children treated for cancer have an overall 70-80 per cent cure rate. As the numbers of survivors of childhood cancer increases, studies of the long-term survivors allow research that can guide newer treatment protocols and further improve the outlook for newly diagnosed patients.

Compared with the general population, survivors of childhood cancer in Australia are at an increased risk of second cancers and an earlier death, according to an article published in the Medical Journal of Australia, which looked at a group of survivors treated between 1970 and 1999.

MJA media release - High bed occupancy and emergency department (ED) overcrowding are bad for patients, staff and the system itself, according to an editorial in the Medical Journal of Australia.

In the editorial, Dr Sally McCarthy, President of the Australasian College for Emergency Medicine and Director of Emergency Medicine at, Prince of Wales Hospital, Sydney, discusses hospital occupancy levels and ED overcrowding.

Dr McCarthy said that reducing the number of hospital beds, and increasing occupancy above 85 per cent in the name of operational efficiency, has clearly had a negative effect, as the demand for hospital beds in Australia exceeds supply.

MJA media release - The acute care surgery (ACS) model, which is consultant-led, provides a safe surgical environment for patients and is associated with a reduced complication rate, according to an article in the Medical Journal of Australia.

Dr Robert Gandy, Surgical Registrar at the Prince of Wales Hospital, Sydney, and co-authors conducted a retrospective historical control study, comparing appendicectomy outcomes for the ACS model with the traditional on-call (Trad) model.

Dr Gandy said that the ACS model, when compared with the Trad model, resulted in reduced complication rates and fewer operations after midnight.

MJA media release - Although codeine-ibuprofen can be considered a relatively weak opioid analgesic, it is nevertheless addictive and more research is needed to develop health care responses to its misuse, according to an article in the Medical Journal of Australia.

Dr Matthew Frei, Clinical Head at Southern and Eastern Health Alcohol and Drug Services and Adjunct Senior Lecturer at the School of Psychology and Psychiatry, Monash University, Melbourne, and co-authors investigated morbidity related to the misuse of over-the-counter (OTC) codeine-ibuprofen analgesics between May 2005 and December 2008.

Twenty seven patients with serious morbidity were studied. On average, the patients were taking daily doses of 435-602mg of codeine phosphate and 6800-9400mg ibuprofen.

MJA media release - An integrated approach to cancer care needs to be developed in Australia that incorporates psychosocial and biological interventions, according to an article published in a Medical Journal of Australia supplement.

The Anxiety, Depression and Cancer supplement is the product of a partnership between beyondblue and the Cancer Council Australia.

Professor David Clarke, of the School of Psychology and Psychiatry at Monash University, Melbourne, and Research Advisor at beyondblue, said that despite the development of an evidence base in the field of psychooncology in the past few decades, clinical practice lagged behind evidence and standards of best practice.

AMA Federal Councillor and AMA NT President, Dr Paul Bauert, said today that the Australian Government could learn a lot from the experiences of non-government organisations (NGOs) internationally about how best to make real improvements in Indigenous health.

Dr Bauert is this week attending the United Nations Advance Global Health Conference in Melbourne.

 The AMA will next month host a summit of key medical training stakeholders to discuss and develop solutions to the crisis around the shortage of prevocational and vocational training positions for medical school graduates.

AMA President, Dr Andrew Pesce, said today that Australia faces the loss of hundreds of locally produced, highly trained medical graduates to other countries or other professions.

Transcript: AMA President, Dr Andrew Pesce, with Leon Delaney, 2SM Radio, Thursday 26 August 2010

Subject: Medical internships shortage

The AMA shares the concerns of Australia’s biggest medical schools that the national shortage of medical internships has severe implications for the future medical workforce and its ability to meet the health care needs of a growing and ageing population, with more people suffering chronic and complex conditions.

Dr Pesce said the internship shortage has reached crisis point and all Australian governments, including the next Commonwealth Government, must work together to find solutions.

Supporting the medical workforce

The topic of the Conference – ‘10 Years From Now’ – is very appropriate given the era of health reform in which we are all operating at the moment.

We do need to plan for the future.

This session is titled ‘Medical Practitioner Registration and Training – issues for CHA facilities in 2010 and beyond’.

An important part of the future of our health system is the medical workforce.

The National Immunisation Strategy and General Practice

The AMA is a strong advocate for immunisation and it welcomes the review of the National Immunisation Strategy.

It will provide an opportunity to develop a planning framework that will enable us to build on and enhance initiatives in immunisation and vaccine-preventable disease now and for the future.

Transcript: AMA President, Dr Andrew Pesce, with Richard Aedy, Life Matters, ABC Radio National, Tuesday 17 August 2010

Subject: Election health policy; Collaboration between obstetricians and midwives

The National Health and Hospitals Network

Good morning.

My subject today is the Government’s National Health and Hospitals Network.

If this speech was being delivered next week, it could possibly be a very different speech depending on the election result.

Labor and the Coalition have different views on the future of the National Health and Hospitals Network.

It is our job at the AMA to make sure both sides are serious about health reform.

The AMA welcomes today’s commitment from Labor that, if elected, it would invest heavily in telemedicine to support and enhance health services as a part of a modern health system.

AMA President, Dr Andrew Pesce, said the investment would assist doctors to better use communications technology to provide services to patients who would otherwise have limited or no access to these services.

“This is a recognition of the need to embrace communications technology to modernise our health system,” Dr Pesce said.

MJA media release - Interest and awareness about bipolar disorder are slowly shifting, largely due to emerging treatments and research, according to an article in a supplement to the current edition of the Medical Journal of Australia.

Prof David Castle, from the Department of Psychiatry at the University of Melbourne, Prof Michael Berk, from the Department of Clinical and Biomedical Sciences at the University of Melbourne, and Barbara Hocking, Executive Director of SANE Australia, examined emerging treatments for and research on bipolar disorder.

Prof Castle said bipolar disorder is attracting an upsurge of interest among the general public and in clinical and research arenas, which is being driven largely by the emergence of a range of new pharmacological and psychological treatments.

MJA media release - Hospitalisation rates for injuries due to non-traffic crashes among New South Wales (NSW) residents has increased over the past ten years, despite fatalities due to road crashes declining, according to a study published in the Medical Journal of Australia.

Non-traffic crashes are those involving any vehicles that occur anywhere other than on a public highway.

Dr Julie Hatfield and Dr Shanley  Chong, from the NSW Injury Risk Management Research Centre at the University of NSW, with Dr Wei Du from the George Institute for International Heath at the University of Sydney, conducted a study to examine the trends in hospitalisation rates for injuries due to non-traffic crashes among NSW residents.

MJA media release - The worsening severity in sleep-disordered breathing is primarily attributable to increases in obesity, according to a study published in the Medical Journal of Australia.

Dr Jeffery Pretto, Stephen Gyulay and Professor Michael Hensley, from the Department of Respiratory and Sleep Medicine at the John Hunter Hospital, Newcastle, and School of Medicine and Public Health at the University of Newcastle, conducted a study aimed at describing trends in sleep-disordered breathing (SDB) severity and whether incidences and severity changed in the Hunter New England region between 1987 and 2007.

Dr Jeffery Pretto said that between 1987 and 2007, 14,648 new diagnostic sleep studies were performed.

MJA media release - Asbestos remains a global health threat, with over two million tonnes produced in 2008. Developing countries are mining and importing asbestos for domestic use, according to an article published in the Medical Journal of Australia.

Professor Peter Sly, Deputy Director of the Queensland Children’s Medical Research Institute at the University of Queensland, and co-authors are calling for action to support the latest international effort to ban the mining and manufacturing of all forms of asbestos; to increase effective education of the dangers of asbestos; and to urge our legislators to increase their efforts to rid the world of asbestos-related disease.

AMA President, Dr Andrew Pesce, said today that the AMA supports the principle that parents should be given greater incentive to take personal responsibility for making sure that their children have a healthy start to life, but the Healthy Kids Check, in its current form, is not the right way to achieve this outcome.

Dr Pesce said the Healthy Kids Check needs to be redesigned in consultation with the medical profession to ensure that it targets the right risk factors in children at the right age and that there is an evidence base for this approach.

AMA President, Dr Andrew Pesce, said today that it is unacceptable that the major parties are yet to make significant policy announcements to address the health needs of Indigenous Australians.

Dr Pesce said Indigenous health must be a priority in this election, not an afterthought.

The AMA is today calling on the major parties to commit to proper indexation of the Medicare Benefits Schedule (MBS) and to promise to increase Medicare patient rebates, not cut them.

AMA President, Dr Andrew Pesce, said that Medicare rebates are set by the Government and are paid to patients to assist them with the cost of professional medical care and treatment, but the current rebates do not reflect the realistic cost of providing medical services.

AMA President, Dr Andrew Pesce, said today that the AMA condemns the killing of eight foreign doctors in Afghanistan.

Dr Pesce said it is a tragedy that these doctors could lose their lives while seeking to provide medical care to poor and oppressed people in a country at war.

“Many doctors, including Australians, travel to the world’s trouble spots to provide vital medical services to the innocent victims of conflict,” Dr Pesce said.

AMA President, Dr Andrew Pesce, said today that the Coalition’s commitment to invest $85 million in health infrastructure in local communities is a small but good start in meeting growing demand for important services and equipment, especially for public hospitals.

Dr Pesce said that capital investment in health infrastructure, particularly in neglected areas of rural, regional and remote Australia, is sorely needed.

Transcript: Media Doorstop, AMA NSW House, St Leonards, Sydney, Thursday 5 August 2010

Subjects: Coalition Health Policy; NSW local health networks

ANDREW PESCE: Thanks for coming.  Well there's been a lot of comment that there hasn't been enough health debate in the election so far, but I think it's going to change after today.

The AMA welcomes the Coalition’s health policy, which will stimulate debate and bring the health policy bidding war alive in this election campaign.

AMA President, Dr Andrew Pesce, said today that the Coalition has made some strong commitments on hospital beds, support for GPs, and clinician involvement in hospital governance arrangements through community boards, all of which are consistent with AMA policy.

Transcript:   AMA President, Dr Andrew Pesce, with Alex Sloan, ABC Radio 666 Canberra,  Tuesday 3 August 2010

Subject: GP Super Clinics

The AMA today called on all parties to support the introduction of plain packaging of tobacco products in Australia and to publicly condemn the reported tobacco industry advertising campaign against this groundbreaking public health initiative.

AMA President, Dr Andrew Pesce, said that Australia is set to lead the world with strong anti-smoking measures that will save lives and improve the health of the population, and urged all parties and politicians to get behind the plain packaging plan.