Long term trustee Mr Don Good has been appointed Chairman of Trustees for St John of Good Health Care, replacing Sister Isobel Moran who held the role for seven years. It may be a sign of the times that an accountant is taking over from a nun.
Still at St John of God, Ms Anna Roberts has been appointed inaugural Mental Health Program Coordinator ... Read More...
Medical Forum's caesarean snowball
Our April feature on WA's escalating caesarean section rates has gathered a lot of media attention in the last few weeks. The story was first picked up by The West at the start of April and then reappeared on the front page after Easter, with Health Minister Jim McGinty touting a tough new policy on elective caeseareans to arrest the state's 33% c-section rate. Even TV channels picked up the story. With all this attention, it looks like the elective caesearean could be headed the way of the circumcision and no longer performed in the public system for non-medical reasons.
Masters of lying low
Perth's recently touted Masters of General Practice conference has fallen through, with rumours that lacklustre registration numbers were to blame. Flyers only reached GPs and businesses in late December, giving potential delegates less than eight weeks to get their act together. Not surprisingly, the organisers have been keeping low, but from what we hear, the conference has not been officially cancelled, merely postponed ... indefinitely.
Where's the wellness?
Where should health consumers go to attain wellness? Well, according to HBF's new Wellness cover ... Read More...
RPH's head trauma surgeon Dr Sudhakar Rao has been appointed as WA"s first Director of Trauma Services. Dr Rao established WA's first registry of trauma data 12 years ago and has been instrumental in the planning of trauma services at the new Fiona Stanley Hospital.
Dr Steve Patchett, former acting Director of the WA State Forensic Mental Health Service, has been appointed as ... Read More...
The birds!
Longstanding Esperance GP and Liberal MLA Dr Graham Jacobs finds himself in a challenging situation, with birds dropping out of Esperance skies, presumably from contamination from lead carbonate shipped out of Esperance harbour. The contamination appears airborne, and with a ‘no safe threshold limit' for lead in humans, fall out for his patient (now constituent) population seems inevitable. His choices might be to quietly get on with doctoring in the town or scaremongering and Labor-bashing for political advantage in his marginal seat.
Silver lining on the Gray cloud?
The pragmatic peace pipe is out at Sirtex Medical. The company announced it had been granted leave to amend its cost claim against Professor Bruce Gray, and said it had received a written undertaking from Prof Gray to refrain from directly or indirectly carrying on any business similar to, or competitive against, Sirtex's. Given the boardroom events of last year, this is a huge change. Meanwhile, Sirtex's net profit dropped to $1.6m (compared to $2.7m last period) although sales increased worldwide. The reason for the drop? Legal fees.
C3: all cashed up with nothing to sell
As we predicted in the February edition, investors are now running a mile from C3 after it downgraded its earnings forecast....
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Dr Lachlan Henderson has been appointed General Manager at Healthscope's Mount Hospital, the first time the hospital has had a medico at the helm. Previous GM Brad Sebbes is heading up the new Fiona Stanley Hospital with all its planning headaches. As Lachlan arrives, Mount Project Officer Joanne Fraser is leaving for personal reasons. The Mount is rumoured to be undergoing serious refurbishment in some clinical domains.
Adj. Prof Bernard Laurence has stepped down from his position as...
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