collectiveevolution--2019-10-14--12,000 Doctors Urge the FDA to Put Cancer Warnings on Cheese

Since the apparent death by suicide of Jeffrey Epstein in a Manhattan prison, much has come to light about his depraved activities and methods used to sexually abuse underage girls and entrap the rich and powerful for the purposes of blackmail. Epstein’s ties to intelligence, described in-depth in a recent MintPress investigative series, have continued to receive minimal mainstream media coverage, which has essentially moved on from the Epstein scandal despite the fact that his many co-conspirators remain on the loose.  For those who have examined Epstein’s ties to intelligence, there are clear links to both U.S. intelligence and Israeli intelligence, leaving it somewhat open to debate as to which country’s intelligence apparatus was closest to Epstein and most involved in his blackmail/sex-trafficking activities. A recent interview given by a former high-ranking official in Israeli military intelligence has claimed that Epstein’s sexual blackmail enterprise was an Israel intelligence operation run for the purpose of entrapping powerful individuals and politicians in the United States and abroad.  In an interview with Zev Shalev, former CBS News executive producer and award-winning investigative journalist for Narativ, the former senior executive for Israel’s Directorate of Military Intelligence, Ari Ben-Menashe, claimed not only to have met Jeffrey Epstein and his alleged madam, Ghislaine Maxwell, back in the 1980s, but that both Epstein and Maxwell were already working with Israeli intelligence during that time period.  In an interview last week with the independent outlet Narativ, Ben-Menashe, who himself was involved in Iran-Contra arms deals, told his interviewer Zev Shalev that he had been introduced to Jeffrey Epstein by Robert Maxwell in the mid-1980s while Maxwell’s and Ben-Menashe’s involvement with Iran-Contra was ongoing. Ben-Menashe did not specify the year he met Epstein.  Ben-Menashe told Shalev that “he [Maxwell] wanted us to accept him [Epstein] as part of our group …. I’m not denying that we were at the time a group that it was Nick Davies [Foreign Editor of the Maxwell-Owned Daily Mirror], it was Maxwell, it was myself and our team from Israel, we were doing what we were doing.” Past reporting by Seymour Hersh and others revealed that Maxwell, Davies and Ben-Menashe were involved in the transfer and sale of military equipment and weapons from Israel to Iran on behalf of Israeli intelligence during this time period.  He then added that Maxwell had stated during the introduction that “your Israeli bosses have already approved” of Epstein. Shalev later noted that Maxwell “had an extensive network in Israel at the time, which included [the later Prime Minister] Ariel Sharon, according to Ben-Menashe.”  Ben-Menashe went on to say that he had “met him [Epstein] a few times in Maxwell’s office, that was it.” He also said he was not aware of Epstein being involved in arms deals for anyone else he knew at the time, but that Maxwell wanted to involve Epstein in the arms transfer in which he, Davies and Ben-Menashe were engaged on Israel’s behalf.  However, as MintPress reported in Part IV of the investigative series “Inside the Jeffrey Epstein Scandal: Too Big to Fail,” Epstein was involved with several arms dealers during this period of time, some of whom were directly involved in Iran-Contra arms deals between Israel and Iran. For instance, after leaving Bear Stearns in 1981, Epstein began working in the realms of shadow finance as a self-described “financial bounty hunter,” where he would both hunt down and hide money for powerful people. One of these powerful individuals was Adnan Khashoggi, a Saudi arms dealer with close ties to both Israeli and U.S. intelligence and one of the main brokers of Iran-Contra arms deals between Israel and Iran. Epstein would later forge a business relationship with a CIA front company involved in another aspect of Iran-Contra, the airline Southern Air Transport, on behalf of Leslie Wexner’s company, The Limited.  During this period, it is also known that Epstein became well acquainted with the British arms dealer Sir Douglas Leese, who collaborated with Khashoggi on at least one British-Saudi arms deal in the 1980s. Leese would later introduce Epstein to Steven Hoffenberg, calling Epstein a “genius” and describing his lack of morals during that introduction. Thus, there are indications that Epstein was involved with Middle Eastern arms deals, including some related to Iran-Contra, during this period. In addition, Epstein would later claim (and then subsequently deny) having worked for the CIA during this period.  After having been introduced to Epstein, Ben-Menashe claimed that neither he nor Davies were impressed with Epstein and considered him “not very competent.” He added that Ghislaine Maxwell had “fallen for” Epstein and that he believed that the romantic relationship between his daughter and Epstein led Robert Maxwell to work to bring the latter into the “family business” — i.e., Maxwell’s dealings with Israeli intelligence. This information is very revealing, given that the narrative, until now at least, has been that Ghislaine Maxwell and Jeffrey Epstein did not meet and begin their relationship until after Robert Maxwell’s death in 1991, after which Ghislaine moved to New York.  Ben-Menashe says that well after the introduction, though again he does not specify what year, Ghislaine Maxwell and Jeffrey Epstein began a sexual blackmail operation with the purpose of extorting U.S. political and public figures on behalf of Israeli military intelligence. He stated:  He then confirmed, when prompted, that they were blackmailing Americans on behalf of Israeli intelligence.  In response to his statement, Zev Shalev replied, “But, you know, for most people it’s hard for them to think of Israel as being … blackmailing their leaders in the United States, it’s a very …” at which point, Ben-Menashe interrupted and the following exchange took place:  Ari Ben-Menashe: You’re kidding? [laughs]…. It was quite their M.O. Sleeping around is not a crime, it may be embarrassing, but it’s not a crime, but sleeping with underage girls is a crime.  Shalev: It was a crime in 2000 as well, but they let him off that…  Ben-Menashe: And that it is [why] always so he [Epstein] made sure these girls were underage.  In addition, when Shalev asked Ben-Menashe about the relationship between Jeffrey Epstein and former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak, Ben-Menashe stated “After a while, you know, what Mr. Epstein was doing was collecting intelligence on people in the United States. And so if you want to go to the U.S. if you’re a high-profile politician you want to know information about people.” Ben-Menashe subsequently stated that Barak was obtaining compromising information (i.e., blackmail) that Epstein had acquired on powerful people in the United States.  If Robert Maxwell did recruit Epstein and bring him into the “family business” and the world of Israeli intelligence, as Ben-Menashe has claimed, it provides supporting evidence for information provided to MintPress by a former U.S. intelligence official, who chose to remain anonymous in light of the sensitivity of the claim.  This source, who has direct knowledge of the unauthorized use of PROMIS to support covert U.S. and Israeli intelligence projects, told MintPress that “some of the proceeds from the illicit sales of PROMIS were made available to Jeffrey Epstein for use in compromising targets of political blackmail.” As was noted in a Mintpress series on the Epstein scandal, much of Epstein’s funding also came from Ohio billionaire Leslie Wexner, who has documented ties to both organized crime and U.S. and Israeli intelligence.  After the PROMIS software was stolen from its rightful owner and developer, Inslaw Inc., through the collusion of both U.S. and Israeli officials, it was marketed mainly by two men: Earl Brian, a close aide to Ronald Reagan, later U.S. envoy to Iran and close friend of Israeli spymaster Rafi Eitan; and Robert Maxwell. Brian sold the bugged software through his company, Hadron Inc., while Maxwell sold it through an Israeli company he acquired called Degem. Before and following Maxwell’s acquisition of Degem, the company was a known front for Mossad operations and Mossad operatives in Latin America often posed as Degem employees.  With Maxwell — Epstein’s alleged recruiter and father of Epstein’s alleged madam — having been one of the main salespeople involved in selling PROMIS software on behalf of intelligence, he would have been in a key position to furnish Epstein’s nascent sexual blackmail operation with the proceeds from the sale of PROMIS.  This link between Epstein’s sexual blackmail operation and the PROMIS software scandal is notable given that the illicit use of PROMIS by U.S. and Israeli intelligence has been for blackmail purposes on U.S. public figures and politicians, as was described in a recent MintPress report.  Can an ex-spy be trusted?  When dealing in the world of deception and intrigue that defines intelligence operations, it is often difficult to determine whether any individual linked to an intelligence agency is telling the truth. Indeed, in the United States, there are examples of elected intelligence officials committing perjury and lying to Congress on several occasions with no consequences, and of intelligence officials feeding politically motivated and untrue information to agency assets in the media.  So, are Ari Ben-Menashe’s claims regarding Epstein and the Maxwells trustworthy? In addition to the aforementioned, corroborating information for his claims, a review of Ben-Menashe’s post-intelligence career suggests this is the case.  Prior to his arrest in November 1989, Ben-Menashe was a high-ranking officer in a special unit of Israeli military intelligence. He would later claim that his arrest for attempting to sell American-made weapons to Iran was politically motivated, as he had threatened to expose what the U.S. government had done with the stolen PROMIS software if the U.S. did not cease providing Saddam Hussein’s Iraq with chemical weapons. Ben-Menashe was later acquitted when a U.S. court determined that his involvement in the attempted sale of military equipment to Iran was done on behalf of the Israeli state.  After his arrest, Ben-Menashe was visited in prison by Robert Parry, the former Newsweek contributor and Associated Press reporter who would later found and run Consortium News until his recent passing last year. Parry remembered that, during that interview, “Ben-Menashe offered me startling new information about the Iran-Contra scandal, which I thought that I knew quite well.”  Israel’s government immediately began to attack Ben-Menashe’s credibility following his interview with Parry, and claimed that Ben-Menashe had never worked for Israeli intelligence. When Parry soon found evidence that Ben-Menashe had indeed served in Israeli military intelligence, Israel’s government was then forced to admit that he had worked for military intelligence, but only as a “low-level translator.” Yet, the documentation Parry had uncovered described Ben-Menashe as having served in “key positions” and performed “complex and sensitive assignments.”  A year later, Ben-Menashe would be interviewed by another journalist, Seymour Hersh. It would be Ben-Menashe who first revealed to Hersh secrets about Israel’s nuclear program and the fact that British media mogul Robert Maxwell was an Israeli spy, revelations that Hersh would not only independently corroborate but include in his book The Samson Option: Israel’s Nuclear Arsenal and American Foreign Policy. Hersh was then sued by Robert Maxwell and the Maxwell-owned Mirror Group for libel. The case was later settled in Hersh’s favor, as the claims Hersh had made were true and not libelous. As a result, the Mirror Group paid Hersh for damages, covered his legal costs, and issued him a formal apology.  After Ben-Menashe’s interviews by Hersh and Parry, Israel’s government was apparently concerned enough about what Ben-Menashe would tell congressional investigators that it attempted to kidnap him and bring him back to Israel to face state charges, much like Israeli intelligence had done to Israel’s nuclear-weapons whistleblower Mordechai Vanunu. The plan was foiled largely thanks to Parry.  Parry, who broke many key stories related to the Iran-Contra scandal in the 1980s and beyond, was tipped off by a U.S. intelligence source about a joint U.S.-Israel plan to have Ben-Menashe first be denied entry to the United States on his planned trip to give congressional testimony. Per the plan, Ben-Menashe would be denied entry to the U.S. in Los Angeles and then be deported to Israel, where he would have stood trial for “exposing state secrets.” Parry called Ben-Menashe and convinced him to delay his flight until he secured a guarantee for safe passage from the U.S. government.  Ben-Menashe subsequently gave a sworn statement to the House Judiciary Committee that mostly focused on U.S.-Israel collusion regarding the theft and creation of a “backdoor” into the PROMIS software. Ben-Menashe offered to name names and provide corroborating evidence for several of his claims if he was offered immunity by the committee, which, for whatever reason. declined that request.  Prior to the conclusion of the Hersh “libel” trial, which would later uphold Ben-Menashe’s claims regarding Robert Maxwell’s Mossad activities as true, there was a concerted effort in the U.S. press to downplay Ben-Menashe’s credibility. For instance, Newsweek — in an article on Ben-Menashe entitled “One Man, Many Tales” — claimed that “inconsistencies may undermine Ben-Menashe’s testimony in the British courtroom proceedings,” citing inconsistencies from sources in Israel’s government and Israeli intelligence as well as Ben-Menashe’s ex-wife and Israeli journalist Shmuel (or Samuel) Segev, a former IDF colonel. It goes without saying that such sources had much to gain from any effort to discredit Ben-Menashe’s claims.  According to Parry, this media campaign, which employed American journalists with close ties to Israel’s government and intelligence agencies, was very successful “in marginalizing Ben-Menashe by 1993, at least in the eyes of the Washington Establishment.” After a years-long media campaign to discredit Ben-Menashe, “the Israelis seemed to view him as a declining threat, best left alone. He was able to pick up the pieces of his life, creating a second act as an international political consultant and businessman arranging sales of grain.” The effort to marginalize Ben-Menashe has continued well into recent years, with mainstream news outlets still referring to him as a “self-described ex-Israeli spy” — despite the well-documented fact that Ben-Menashe worked for Israeli intelligence — as a means of downplaying his claims regarding his time in Israel’s intelligence service.  After the conclusion of the Hersh libel trial, Ben-Menashe became an international political consultant who “surrounded his far-flung business activities in secrecy and got involved with some controversial international figures, such as Zimbabwe’s leader Robert Mugabe,” and  “conducted his international consulting business … in a wide variety of global hotspots, including conflict zones,” according to Parry. In addition to Mugabe, Ben-Menashe has also recently come under fire for his consulting work on behalf of Sudan’s military junta and Venezuelan opposition politician Henri Falcón.  Ben-Menashe has also maintained ties to several different intelligence services and eventually became a controversial whistleblower whose information led to the arrest of the former head of Canada’s Security Intelligence Review Committee, Arthur Porter.  As far as his character is concerned, Parry noted that Ben-Menashe could often be “his own worst enemy” and that, even though Parry considered his information regarding Iran-Contra and PROMIS reliable and noted that much of it was later corroborated, he “often compound[ed] his media problem by treating journalists in a high-handed manner, either due to his suspicions of them or his arrogance.”  Bill Hamilton, the original developer of the PROMIS software and head of Inslaw Inc., also found Ben-Menashe’s claims regarding the illicit use of PROMIS by U.S. and Israeli intelligence agencies to be credible, though he expressed doubts about Ben-Menashe’s character.  Hamilton told MintPress the following about Ben-Menashe:  While Ben-Menashe may have been viewed as a “declining threat” after the early 1990s, his plans to meet with Robert Parry of Consortium News years later in 2012 to discuss Iran-Contra and other covert dealings of the 1980s appeared to change that. Right before he planned to travel from Canada to the United States to meet with Parry and “finally prove” the truthfulness of his past claims, a fire-bomb was thrown into his Montreal home, destroying it.  Though Canadian media referred to the incendiary device as a “molotov cocktail,” Consortium News reported that “the arson squad’s initial assessment is said to be that the flammable agent was beyond the sort of accelerant used by common criminals,” leading to speculation that the accelerant was military-grade.  Had it not been for the bomb, the origins of which Canadian police failed to determine, Ben-Menashe would have traveled to the U.S. alongside a “senior Israeli intelligence figure” to be interviewed by Parry. The other intelligence-linked individual, according to Parry, “concluded that the attack was meant as a message from Israeli authorities to stay silent about the historical events that he was expected to discuss.”  Though neither Ben-Menashe nor Parry directly blamed Israel’s government for the destruction of Ben-Menashe’s home, Parry noted that the bombing did succeed in “intimidating Ben-Menashe, shutting down possible new disclosures of Israeli misconduct from the other intelligence veteran, and destroying records that would have helped Ben-Menashe prove whatever statements he might make.”  While Ben-Menashe’s post-intelligence associations with controversial governments and individuals have given plenty of fodder to the still thriving media campaign to discredit his claims about covert U.S.-Israel operations in the 1980s, there remain troubling indications that the Israeli government sees his information on decades-old events as a threat.  Now, with the major efforts by powerful Americans and Israelis to distance themselves from Jeffrey Epstein and other figures associated with his depraved sex trafficking operation, Ben-Menashe may soon again find his reputation — and perhaps more — under fire.  Whitney Webb is a MintPress News journalist based in Chile. She has contributed to several independent media outlets including Global Research, EcoWatch, the Ron Paul Institute and 21st Century Wire, among others. She has made several radio and television appearances and is the 2019 winner of the Serena Shim Award for Uncompromised Integrity in Journalism.


dailymail--2019-12-03--Nurses and doctors stage Hands Off Our NHS Stop Donald Trump protest Buckingham Palace Mall

Dozens of doctors and nurses tonight marched to Buckingham Palace where Donald Trump will be hosted by the Queen amid rumours of the NHS being 'sold off' to the US.  The US President today denied he wanted anything to do with the NHS and said he wouldn't take it as part of a post-Brexit trade deal 'even if it was handed on a silver platter'.  But NHS staff still claim America is a threat to the Health Service and were seen clutching placards that read: 'Hands off our NHS' and 'Our NHS is not for sale'.  The notorious 'Blimp' depicting a baby version of Trump was seen flying above central London as more demonstrators gathered.  After walking along The Mall from Trafalgar Square, the group gathered outside the Palace for when Trump arrives for the Queen's NATO leaders' reception this evening.  Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn has vowed to confront Trump over his claims UK and US officials have met to discuss the NHS.  He today claimed he will warn Trump the UK's 'public services are not for sale' after waving a 450-page dossier on the subject in front of the media last week.  Doctors and nurses were joined by CND (Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament) supporters who are furious at Trump's position on the Iran Nuclear Deal and 'Say No To Racism' campaigners.  Dozens of officers have been drafted in to police the protests on Day One of Trump's NATO visit to London.  Asked if the NHS should be on the table in post-Brexit trade talks this morning Mr Trump said: 'No, not at all. I have nothing to do with it, never even thought about it.'  He then praised the US healthcare system before adding: 'In this country they have to work that out for themselves … I don't even know where that rumour started, we have absolutely nothing to do with it.  'And we wouldn't want to if you handed it to us on a silver-platter, we want nothing to do with it.'


drudgereport--2019-01-12--White doctors in SAfrica told not to apply for open positions

White doctors in SAfrica told not to apply for open positions...

A race row has broken out in South Africa after health officials advertised for 100 new doctors, but did not allow white medics to apply for specialist roles.  The health department in the KwaZulu-Natal province expanded its registrar programme for 2019 from 314 to 414, but aimed to fill the new posts with only black candidates.  Health bosses said the move was implemented to redress the country's historical racial imbalance of Apartheid that saw most high-ranking positions filed by white doctors.  Campaigners and human rights activists have branded the recruitment policy 'discriminatory, unconstitutional and racist'.  Leaked documents show the department wanted to train a total of 366 black doctors and had already recruited 32 Indian, 12 white and four mixed race registrars, but need a further 100 black medics to meet employment equity targets.  The registrar programme trains doctors to become specialists over a four-year period.  Ncumisa Mafunda, a spokeswoman for the health department, said historical redress was a 'government imperative' and 'the morally and socially right thing to do'.  She told TimesLIVE: 'South Africa, including KwaZulu-Natal, remains an unequal society with limited opportunities for self-development for those who were historically oppressed.  'This means 238 posts must be filled with [black] Africans to take the current 128 filled posts to the target of 366. This implies that the 100 new posts must go to Africans in terms of the targets, else if there are no suitable Africans, the posts must be re-advertised.  'After difficulties were experienced in recruiting black African candidates for these posts, a deviation was sought from the accounting officer and, out of a total of 77 registrar posts, 21 posts will be offered to non-Black Africans.'  But Mary de Haas, a member of Medical Rights Advocacy Network (Meran) said that historical redress was necessary, but the policy was discriminatory and unconstitutional, blaming mismanaging of department budgets.  She told the newspaper: 'I think it is a very bad way of doing it. It's not really fair to sideline people who have done extremely well.  'It [the health department] spent money sending students to Cuba instead of building local capacity, which would have sorted this out years ago.  Dr Imran Keeka, a spokesman for the Democratic Alliance KwaZulu-Natal health said a policy which 'causes the domination of one race over the other by exclusion is nothing more than an aberration of our constitutional values and is racist'.


eveningstandard--2019-02-09--Forty UK doctors and nurses on mission to deliver life-changing surgery to children in Ethiopia

In the three years of travelling to Ethiopia to treat patients with life-altering facial disfigurements, one case in particular stands out for nurse Lara Tang.  A 15-year-old patient who had dropped out of school after being bullied for having a huge tumour on his nose, had travelled hundreds of kilometres to have surgery to remove it.  “I remember being there when he looked in the mirror for the first time,” said Ms Tang, a clinical nurse specialist in plastic surgery at St Thomas’ Hospital.  “He was just smiling from ear to ear, he was so shocked.”  Ms Tang, 34, is part of a team of 40 nurses, surgeons, anesthetists and doctors from hospitals around the UK who give up two weeks of their holiday and travel to Ethiopia each year to perform life-changing surgery alongside local medical teams.  Their patients - up to 50 or 60 children and adults each mission - often have severe, life threatening facial deformities or have suffered injuries from hyena attacks.  They arrive to the clinic “with their faces covered with cloths, reserved, quiet and ashamed of the way they look,” Ms Tang said.  “Once they see there are others with similar disfigurements and see that they are not alone, they slowly come out off their shell.”  Ms Tang is headed to Ethiopia for the fourth time in March, where charity Project Harar runs the missions.  The complex issues each patient faces makes surgery difficult, but Ms Tang said the biggest challenge is dealing with the limited facilities.  “It's not uncommon for us to go day-to-day without there being power cuts or no running water or trying to get a hold of things,” she said.  When Ms Tang first travelled to Ethiopia in 2014, she said “nothing could have prepared her” for what she experienced.  “The poverty that you see with your own two eyes on the streets, I remember going past on a bus and seeing people lying on the streets - it's quite shocking,” she said.  “I saw a quite a lot of homeless people and you see homeless people over here (in London) but these people they have babies and you can't even see their babies because cos they're so malnourished.”  She added that the emotional attachment she feels for patients can be difficult but it is “something that can’t be helped.”  Last year, an 18-year-old boy had arrived at the clinic alone who Ms Tang later found out had been orphaned.  “At the age of 5, he fell from a tree and broke his jaw. He attended hospital for surgery, which is where his parents abandoned him and he has since been living in an orphanage,” she said.  “Over the years his accident had caused pain and locked jaw, ultimately contributing to malnutrition.  “He became reserved and developed low self esteem at school.  “Learning that he has been going through this over the years alone and having complex surgery without family to help and support him was difficult to witness so I found myself keeping an extra eye out for him.”  This year, Ms Tang is extending her stay to four weeks and will be one of the lead nurses on the mission.  She said returning back to London after the trips can be difficult.  “It's really cliche but it makes you realise how appreciative you should be of what you've got over here,” she said.  “Especially having access to free health service and advice and treatment over here - it makes you appreciate it.”


eveningstandard--2019-07-05--How teamwork of rival doctors could cut need for open surgery

A pioneering unit that unites two competing factions of doctors is expected to reduce the number of patients undergoing open surgery.  The west London vascular and interventional centre will increase “minimally invasive” procedures to unblock veins and arteries, resulting in lower risk, quicker recovery, shorter hospital stays and cost-savings for the NHS.  This could transform care in an area where high rates of diabetes, smoking, obesity and high blood pressure cause vascular disease.  One of its first patients had her foot saved from amputation as doctors threaded wires and balloons through blocked arteries to restore the blood supply.  Mother-of-two May Gerald, 58, had already lost four toes in her left foot from peripheral arterial disease.  She said: “I was really frightened I was going to lose my leg above the knee because I have two relatives who lost their lower legs to amputation through diabetes.”  Dr Lorenzo Patrone, a vascular and interventional radiologist, said: “We entered the artery through a small puncture wound but it was incredibly difficult to navigate as the vessels had been reduced to a diameter of 2mm.  “The patient would have lost her lower leg eventually so it was a case of painstakingly probing and rerouting until we could navigate an alternate passage which reconnected the blood supply to her entire foot.”  The centre, in Northwick Park hospital, Harrow, brings together vascular surgeons and interventional radiologists — who have a decades-old rivalry and often compete for the same patients.  The joint team, believed to be an NHS first, ensures patients receive the most suitable care based on their need rather than the skills of the doctor.  Professor Martin Malina, who oversaw the launch, said there would always be a need for open vascular surgery but it was likely to be limited to the most complex cases.  He added: “What we are trying to enhance is a unit where colleagues work so closely together that radiologists do a lot of the work traditionally done by surgeons, and vice versa … we will create a new breed of vascular specialist.”


fortune--2019-05-20--The Job Market for Doctors Is Booming Heres What It Means for You

The Job Market for Doctors Is Booming. Here’s What It Means for You

America is benefiting from an historic bull market in employment, and no group is benefiting more than doctors. Newly-minted physicians are choosing from multiple job offers, getting paid more sumptuously than ever, and can practice pretty much wherever they want. At the same time, the way they practice is shifting radically, as more and more physicians choose salaried positions with hospital chains and group practices encompassing thousands of MDs.  But the new corporate model is so hamstrung by the trickle of newly-minted doctors entering practice each year that it can’t come close to meeting the needs of an America whose senior ranks will swell by 46% over the next two decades. The magic of the market is circumventing that roadblock by creating loads of fresh capacity in the form of walk-in clinics, dialysis centers, and other neighborhood venues, staffed by increasing ranks of nurse practitioners, that can provide the care and wellness for patients with chronic conditions who’d otherwise wait weeks to see a primary care doctor, or don’t even have one.  A new study by Merritt Hawkins, America’s largest physician search firm, points to seven trends that are reshaping the how healthcare is delivered. “2019 Survey: Final-Year Medical Residents,” polled doctors months from finishing their residencies and entering the job market. Here’s what they found–and what it means for you.  Merritt Hawkins found that two-thirds of the final-year residents received 51 or more solicitations from recruiters, hospitals, medical groups and others, and that 45% were presented 100 or more job opportunities.  How much did the residents expect their first jobs to pay, based on their conversations with potential employers? A lot. Eight-one percent expected to start at over $201,000, and 21% said they were looking at $326,000 or more. It was the specialists, including surgeons, who anticipated the richest packages, with more than half anticipating comp above $325,000. By contrast, only 24% of primary care residents, a category consisting of internists, pediatricians and family doctors, reckoned they’d make over $250,000. Based on Merritt Hawkins’ surveys of actual first year pay, both groups may be underestimating their initial pay. On average, Merritt Hawkins found, the three primary care groups earn an average of $250,000, while beginning pay is $386,000 in urology, $405,000 for otolaryngology, and $533,000 for orthopedic surgery.  It’s a famous failing of our medical system that rural communities struggle to recruit physicians. The survey provides cold comfort for America’s small towns. It found that where they work is the residents’ biggest single concern, and that 83% want to practice in cities with over 100,000 people; 60% of the primary care doctors are seeking destinations of 250,000 or more. Given that tremendous demand, new doctors can go where they want, and it’s seldom the heartland where the need is greatest. The wealth of choices also leads to lots of turnover. Merritt Hawkins finds that one in eight primary care practitioners changes jobs each year, and that the number is probably far higher for those in the first or second year out of residency.  A big reason that doctors change jobs so readily is the “corporatization” of healthcare. Small “Marcus Welby, M.D.”-style practices have mostly disappeared, and the market is now dominated by big group practices, many of them owned by hospitals. A notable example is Baylor, Scott & White in Dallas, combining a hospital chain and group network of 7,800 physicians. Eighty-three percent of the residents aspired to work for a hospital or group practice, compared with 61% in 2008, with all of the increase coming from preference to join a hospital. Only 9% sought to open an independent practice, versus one-quarter a decade ago.  Doctors are big revenue producers for hospitals. In another study, “2019 Physician Inpatient/Outpatient Revenue Survey,” Merritt Hawkins found that primary care doctors generated $2.1 million a year on average for their hospital-employers, and specialists did even better at $2.46 million, with cardiac and orthopedic surgeons contributing well over $3 million. On average, the revenue per doctor jumped 52% since 2016. That’s because costs per admission are rising, and since hospitals are merging, doctors on average work for bigger and bigger organizations, so they generate increasing income by referring patients to the chains that own their practices, and ordering tests at hospital-run labs.  The Merritt Hawkins report contains a succinct summary of the factors explaining the penury of physicians, and a study from the Association of American Medical Colleges (“The Complexities of Supply and Demand: Projections from 2017 to 2032”), offers a detailed analysis. All the doctors who enter the job market each year must all pass through a narrow opening, the number of positions offered by U.S. residency programs. Those programs are funded chiefly by federal grants from Medicare and Medicaid. In 1997, Congress froze that that funding at $14.5 billion a year, and it’s that cap that’s nearly frozen annual additions to the doctor supply. Hospitals and other programs now offer 32,194 residency positions. That’s up 15% from 2006 due to funding from states and private providers, but over those 12 years, medical spending has jumped 63% to $3.5 trillion.  The AAMC forecasts that today’s shortfall of 20,000 physicians will expand to a deficit of as many as 121,000 by 2032. By that year, the U.S. would likely have around 850,000 patient-care physicians––and need 14% more. For years, this writer has remarked that the official predictions have underestimated future shortages, and therefore, it’s highly possible that the future scenario could be far worse. For example, the AAMC observes that if the current trends toward early retirement continue, the doctor supply would barely rise at all over the next 13 years.  It’s often wrongly stated that the U.S. has a shortage of primary care doctors, and too many specialists. Not so. The AAMC study predicts that the specialist shortfall will be even worse than lack of primary care practitioners in the future. The reason is obvious: A rapidly aging, and longer-surviving, population that needs cardiac surgery, angioplasties, prostate operations and hip replacements.  The chronic doctor shortage is placing a predictable burden on patients: long wait times. In a 2017 study (“Survey of Physician Appointment Wait Times”), Merritt Hawkins examined the problem in fifteen major metros and fifteen mid-sized markets. In the big cities, the average time to see a doctor rose 30% in just three years, from 15 to 21 days, and in the smaller cities, the waiting period expanded 33% to 32 days. It takes 109 days to see a family doctor in Boston, and in Portland, the interlude has grown 8 to 39 days since 2009. In Albany, If you sign up in May for an appointment with a family doctor, you’ll be examined in September. Seeing an orthopedic surgeon takes 43 days in L.A. and 42 days in Atlanta.  It’s obvious that if America is to avoid rationing and price controls, its medical universe will need a lot more capacity. And capitalist ingenuity is now starting to fill the void. Retail clinics are sprouting in drugstores and as free-standing outlets in neighborhood malls. Although the scope of work they’re allowed to perform varies from state to state, nurse practitioners and physician assistants now provide much of the basic care once furnished only by those overbooked doctors. AAMC predicts that the ranks of the NPs and PAs. will swell from 400,000 today to 800,000 by 2032, growing from half the number of today’s patient care doctors to an almost equal size.  The leading pioneer is CVS Health, which has 1100 MinuteClinics in its drugstores from coast-to-coast, and plans a big network of outlets called HealthHUBs that specialize in managing patients with such chronic conditions as diabetes and asthma.  It’s a widespread misperception that healthcare isn’t really a market, and defies the laws of supply and demand. Quite the contrary, it obeys them completely, and that’s the problem. Demand is artificially inflated by subsidies that leave consumers spending just 20 cents for every dollar they consume from take-home pay and savings, and supply that’s artificially restrained by such practices as the vice grip on new physicians. Those practices have left a giant void––and created a retail revolution aiming to fill it.  —Warren Buffett’s best stock picks over the past year  —Subscribe to the new Fortune 500 Daily audio briefing  —“Staggered” boards are paying off for stock investors  —CVS Wants Your Drugstore to be Your Doctor  Don’t miss the daily Term Sheet, Fortune‘s newsletter on deals and dealmakers.


fortune--2019-08-09--How Taking Medical Students Into Coal Mines Helps Lure New Doctors to Rural Areas

On a field trip to the Birthplace of Country Music Museum, Ashish Bibireddy put on headphones and scrolled through a jukebox of music from an influential 1927 recording session.  Bibireddy and nine other medical students had already been biking and rafting on their visit to rural Appalachia organized by a nearby medical college. But it wasn't just casual sightseeing; the tour was part of a concerted effort to attract a new generation of doctors to rural areas struggling with health care shortages.  The Quillen College of Medicine at East Tennessee State University is among a small group of medical schools across the U.S. with programs dedicated to bolstering the number of primary care doctors in rural communities.  The schools send students to live in small towns and train with rural doctors. Like Quillen, some also organize outings and cultural experiences to try to sell students on living there after they graduate.  Schools have taken students to a ranch to brand cattle, brought in an Appalachian story teller, and catered local delicacies to show students who may have never lived without the convenience of a Starbucks or Target what rural life offers.  "It's a little sense of what the fun part of rural life can be," said Dr. Dana King, chair of the family medicine department at West Virginia University School of Medicine, where students in the rural track go to a ski resort, visit a coal mine, and go whitewater rafting.  At the University of Colorado School of Medicine, students can meet with the mayor, police chief, or other leaders of rural communities and interview residents to learn about the town.  "We want to give the students an idea about what goes into the workings of a small community," said Dr. Mark Deutchman, director of the school's rural track.  Most of the more than 7,000 facilities, population groups, and areas in the U.S. facing a shortage of primary care physicians—often a patient's first point of contact for treatment—are rural, according to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. They need nearly 4,000 additional physicians to close the gap.  Most of the students who came to Quillen did not grow up or attend school in rural areas, but all expressed an interest in working with underserved populations, rural programs coordinator Carolyn Sliger said.  The students spent three weeks with doctors in rural towns in eastern Tennessee and a week in June exploring the region. After the museum tour, they visited a war memorial with an eternal flame and hulking U.S. military attack helicopter. The group then headed to a rooftop bar overlooking Bristol, where the brick-lined main street straddles the Virginia-Tennessee state line.  Bibireddy, 23, grew up in suburban Edison, N.J., and attended the University of Central Florida medical college in Orlando. He never lived in a rural area but was impressed with what he saw of Appalachian life during the visit.  "The people here are genuinely caring," he said.  He was inclined to work in a rural area after medical school but acknowledged that building relationships with a community as an outsider would be difficult.  Jason Soong, another medical student in the program, said he has "always known" that he wanted to live in a sparsely populated place with open space. Soong, 23, grew up in a Philadelphia suburb and attended California Northstate University College of Medicine outside Sacramento.  "Living out in a rural area, you can just go outside your door, and you have nature right there," Soong said.  Katherine Schaffer and a few other students ended their day in Bristol around a patio table at a stylish downtown bakery.  Schaffer, 27, said she was excited to meet people who shared her interest in rural practice. Her medical school friends in Norfolk, Va. want to work in cities as specialists and worry they wouldn't have a social life in a small town, she said.  "I think it's very difficult in my medical school to find like-minded people," she told the group.  Administrators of rural track medical school programs say their graduates go into rural practice at considerably higher rates than other doctors. But many of those students are already inclined to practice in a rural area, so the figures may exaggerate the programs' success, said Dr. Randall Longenecker, associate project director for the Collaborative for Rural Primary care, Research, Education, and Practice.  "We skim the cream off the top," said Longenecker, whose research has documented 39 accredited colleges of medicine and colleges of osteopathic medicine that have clearly delineated rural training tracks—about a fifth of U.S. medical schools.  For students from small towns, the programs can help maintain their enthusiasm for rural life, said Dr. Joseph Florence, director of rural programs at Quillen.  Florence said big city medical programs push students to become specialists and avoid primary care.  "They beat rural out of you by the time you leave," he said. The rural track programs, on the other hand, give the students "a place to be rural and not only be accepted but be appreciated for it," he said.  Dr. Darrin Nichols, 28, said the rural track program at West Virginia University School of Medicine confirmed his choice to practice near the West Virginia town of roughly 800 people where he grew up. He was struck by the camaraderie of coal miners he met during a trip organized by the school and said it reminded him of his own tight family bonds.  "I always wanted to stay near my family and practice in a community that had those types of relationships," he said.  —These are the top 10 U.S. cities for tech jobs  —This woman went from Goldman Sachs to Blue Apron recipe tester  —How Fortune’s 40 Under 40 get stuff done: their favorite productivity hacks  Get Fortune’s RaceAhead newsletter for sharp insights on corporate culture and diversity.


freedombunker--2019-07-04--Foreign Lung Doctors Can Help Coal Country Residents We Should Let Them

Foreign Lung Doctors Can Help Coal Country Residents. We Should Let Them.

Since 1903, the plaque at the foot of the Statue of Liberty has extended a warm welcome to the "huddled masses yearning to breathe free," the first sign of respite for immigrants arriving to America in pursuit of a better life.  But these words can just as easily describe 26,000 coal miners fighting for their health as they suffer from the largest black lung epidemic in a quarter century. Miners in Appalachia were exposed to silica dust, a substance that is 20 times more toxic than dust from regular coal, and now as many as one in five miners from Central Appalachia are showing signs of black lung disease.  For years, coal country has relied on physicians from around the world to help manage their chronic health conditions. In Hazard, Kentucky, the only two practicing pulmonologists—doctors who specialize in lung and respiratory care—are from Syria and Bangladesh. On the national level, 30 percent of America's pulmonologists graduated from medical schools abroad, as did 87 percent of pulmonologists currently in training.  But coal country needs even more of these foreign doctors. By the next decade, almost 89 percent of America's practicing pulmonologists will have reached retirement age, and there won't be enough doctors to replace them.  The nation at large needs them, too. Even as America's supply of lung doctors dwindles, over 16 million U.S. residents live with chronic obstructive pulmonary disorder (COPD), a progressive lung disease that often affects elderly people with a history of smoking. Over one in 10 people in Kentucky and West Virginia suffer from COPD, and roughly a quarter of residents in both states are smokers. They also face greater risks of exposure to asbestos, which has been found in Appalachian waterways and soil. According to Thomas Tucker, the associate director for cancer prevention at the University of Kentucky Markey Cancer Center, smokers exposed to asbestos can be 300 times more likely than nonsmokers to develop lung cancer.  There are a number of reforms Congress could enact to enable more foreign physicians to practice in the United States and save these American lives. Some of them are included in the recently reintroduced Conrad 30 Physician Reauthorization Act.  For starters, the bill expands the Conrad 30 J-1 Waiver, a program that allows foreign physicians who completed their medical residency on a J-1 visitor visa to remain in the United States.  Normally, these physicians would be required to return to their home country for a minimum of two years before they could practice in the U.S. But preventing fully qualified doctors from providing much-needed care immediately is nonsensical. Eventually, this provision should be scrapped entirely, but for now, the Conrad 30 Waiver exempts these doctors from the requirement if they agree to practice in a medically underserved area for at least three years.  The bill would also add five extra physician slots annually to every state's 30-physician annual quota so long as these states use 90 percent of the available waivers. States using less than five of their physician slots would be excluded from this calculation so they won't impede the program's expansion in other states. This will allow states that have a high incidence of COPD to sponsor pulmonologists to help care for their residents.  The bill also offers a streamlined pathway to a green card through the National Interest Waiver (NIW), which participating physicians can qualify for if they practice in an underserved area for a total of five years, three of which can include the service required under Conrad 30. If passed, the bill would exempt NIW physicians from the worldwide green card caps, which have trapped some eligible physicians in decades of backlogs.  These reforms will be important for statewide efforts to attract more pulmonologists. The Virginia Department of Health, for example, has identified target areas where the Conrad 30 program can alleviate pulmonologist shortages. Some of these locations, like Buchanan County, are in the Southwestern region of the state, which contains the largest concentration of advanced stage black lung ever reported. When taken together, however, the number of Virginia counties listed as high priority shortage areas for pulmonologists, OB-GYNs, and primary care doctors far exceeds the program's 30 physician limit. So this is a really modest bill that should be considered only the first step in broader reforms to let far more foreign physicians in.  One such reform would be exempting them from repeating medical residencies and fellowships if they already completed them in a country whose medical standards are similar to the United States. Under the current system, an experienced pulmonologist trained abroad needs to complete a three-year residency in internal medicine plus a two-to-three-year pulmonology fellowship in America before they can practice in the United States.  Because of these duplicative requirements, there are as many as 65,000 foreign-trained physicians unable to practice in the United States, and others are taking their talents to countries that better recognize their qualifications. (In Canada, physicians from a handful of countries can bypass residency requirements for certain specialties, such as internal medicine.) Better yet, hospitals should be allowed to assess the competency of these physicians for themselves, and take responsibility for any additional training and supervision they may require.  Despite the myriad of obstacles they must jump through, foreign doctors continue knocking at America's door, eager to use their skills to care for Americans. Enacting policies that encourage more of them to come is one of the best ways to relieve the nation's doctor shortage. America has an obligation to its own citizens to welcome all the help it can get.  Sam Peak is a writer at Young Voices who specializes in immigration policy.


birminghammail--2019-05-31--The NHS is struggling to recruit enough Birmingham nurses and midwives

Nurses and midwives have warned that recruitment and retainment difficulties are impacting people's care, as NHS vacancies in Birmingham rise.  New figures from the NHS have revealed that there were 268 full time equivalent nursing and midwifery positions advertised in our city at the end of March this year.  That’s up from 223 in March 2018 - an increase of 20% in a single year.  The situation in Birmingham reflects a national trend, which has seen nursing and midwifery vacancies rise to their highest level on recent record.  Across England, there were 12,262 vacancies advertised at the end of March - up from 11,483 in 2018, and just 9,420 in 2015, when the figures began.  In the West Midlands the number has risen from 897 in 2015 to 1,057 in March this year, which is again the highest number on recent record.  Experts say the rise in vacancies has come despite an increase in the number of nurses and midwives, because demand is continuing to outstrip supply.  Emma Broadbent, director of registration and revalidation at the Nursing and Midwifery Council, said: “These are challenging times for health and social care, with difficulties around recruiting and retaining highly skilled nursing and midwifery professionals having a direct impact on people who deserve safer, better care.  “We recently published our own registration data report that shows a significant increase in the number of highly skilled nurses and midwives coming onto our register, driven from overseas.  “But with demand continuing to outstrip supply, it’s clear we can’t rely on overseas alone.  “Nurturing and cherishing UK trained nurses is absolutely vital if we are to ensure a thriving, sustainable workforce that is fit for the future.  “Working together, we have to set the health and care system on the right path so that people get the safest, best care possible.”  Patricia Marquis, Royal College of Nursing director for England, said: “It’s very worrying to see the number of advertisements for nursing posts growing inexorably every year.  “But the real problem is that there simply aren’t the nurses out there to fill the jobs, so the vacancy rate remains stubbornly high.  “These damaging and unsustainable shortages will only increase without a firm commitment by Ministers and NHS leaders to sustained investment in the nursing workforce.  “We know too many experienced nurses are leaving the profession because of the stress caused by under-staffing, while too many students are put off studying nursing by the huge debts they will be left with at the end of their training following the removal of the nursing bursary.  “If the long-term plan for the NHS is to be delivered, there needs to be an investment of at least £1billion in nurse higher education in order to boost future numbers in the profession, as well as accountability at the highest level for delivering safe nurse staffing levels.”  The rise in vacancies seen in Birmingham has largely been driven by an increase in the number of positions available in the Birmingham Women's and Children's NHS Foundation Trust.  The trust has seen vacancies more than double in the last year, rising from 20 in March 2018 to 42 in March this year.  The number available in the University Hospitals Birmingham NHS Foundation Trust has risen from 121 to 149, while the Birmingham Community Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust has seen an increase from 28 to 34.  However, the Royal Orthopaedic Hospital NHS Foundation Trust was one of two trusts in Birmingham to see the number of vacancies go down, dropping from 17 in March 2018 to 12 this year.  The other trust was Birmingham and Solihull Mental Health NHS Foundation Trust, which saw the number of vacancies fell from 37 to 31.

newsdesk@birminghamlive.co.uk (Annie Gouk, James Rodger)


birminghammail--2019-11-14--Nike is selling shoes for doctors and nurses to get them through 12-hour shifts

Nike have created new shoes to help doctors and nurses get through 12-hour shifts.  The Nike Air Zoom Pulse is designed to deal with the versatile situations health care workers face day-to-day.  The sportswear giant is releasing a range of footwear designed specifically for those in the healthcare industry.  And all profits will go to the OHSU Doernbecher Children's Hospital in the USA.  Nike said: "During the sessions [at OHSU Doernbecher Children's Hospital], the designers of the Air Zoom Pulse learned the rigours of these health-care workers' day-to-day efforts.  "Nurses, for example, walk approximately four to five miles and sit for less than an hour during the course of a 12-hour shift. The work is physically and mentally demanding.  "The design for the Air Zoom Pulse tackles those challenges with simplicity in mind.  "The shoe is easy to get on and off, and equally simple to clean. The fit, cushioning and traction systems work together to secure the foot in all hospital conditions.  "How can a shoe be both comfortable for long stretches of standing and versatile enough to support the hurried movements required in emergency situations?  "The answer comes through the Pulse's full-rubber outsole, a flexible drop-in midsole with Zoom Air heel unit and a heel fit so secure, it feels like a soft, snug hug."  The collection launches on Nike.com on Saturday 7 December.


channel4uk--2019-12-18--Thousands of nurses in Northern Ireland strike for first time

Thousands of nurses in Northern Ireland are on a 12-hour strike demanding extra pay and better conditions.  They say they’ve been forced to take unprecedented action because years of political paralysis have resulted in treatment waiting times lagging far behind the rest of the UK.  Claiming that inadequate staffing levels are putting patients lives at risk, at 8am this morning, thousands of members of the Royal College of Nursing walked out.


conservativehome--2019-05-08--J Meirion Thomas It makes no sense to poach nurses from abroad rather than recruit them here

J Meirion Thomas: It makes no sense to poach nurses from abroad rather than recruit them here

J.Meirion Thomas is a former Professor of Surgery and Consultant Surgeon in the NHS.  One of this week’s big news stories is that the NHS will need to recruit tens of thousands of nurses from abroad over the next five years to plug holes at ward level in our hospitals.  From a patient’s perspective, nurses are the caring face of the NHS: they work compassionately at the front-line. In addition to the increasingly complex and skillful clinical tasks they perform, nurses have the opportunity to provide words of comfort and reassurance to patients when at their most vulnerable, as well as an explanation of the possibly bewildering treatment plans being carried out. They are true professionals, but sadly not sufficiently respected.  Until fairly recently, nursing was a sought-after profession for school leavers and mature students but, sadly, its appeal and reputation has been eroded. As with teachers, society has failed to understand the vital role that these increasingly unglamorous professions contribute to our national well-being. We neglect them at our peril.  Nursing morale has suffered because of low pay, an expanding workload, insufficient staff numbers and, perhaps especially, anti-social hours. There is a large attrition rate of nurses after graduation and only 60 per cent of nurses apply for work in the NHS.  The body blow for the nursing profession in UK was the decision to abolish bursaries for the training of nurses and midwives as of September 2017. From that date, nursing students, like other graduate students, would have to pay annual tuition fees of £9,000, increasing with inflation. Repayment of loans would begin when they earn more than £21,000 per year.  The reason given for this change was that the money saved could be used to train an additional 10,000 nurses. The opposite has happened! The Royal College of Nursing has described the abolition of nursing bursaries as “a disaster”, and have reported a fall of one third in nursing applications over the past two years. Nursing also attracts mature students who may be especially disadvantaged if they already have expenses relating to an established family or other commitments. Previously, nurses and midwives were entitled to non-repayable bursaries of up to £4,191 with maintenance loans up to £3,263. All tuition fees were paid by government. The change was massive body blow to the profession.  That was no way to treat a workforce that should be valued and respected, and whose professional reputation needed encouragement rather than a gigantic disincentive. Also, little has been said about encouraging nurses back to work after child-rearing and arranging family-friendly work scheduling.  As a direct consequence of this neglect and mismanagement, we are now told that the Government will need to recruit tens of thousands of foreign nurses over the next five years to plug holes in nursing care. As with doctors, they will mostly be poached from lower income countries where they have usually been trained at public expense and where their services are sorely needed. This serial practice has a moral and ethical dimension which we and Government need to address.  Recently, I uncovered the fact that in 2018, the UK had imported more doctors than it had trained. To be exact, of new registrants with the General Medical Council in that year, 8115 had trained abroad (54 per cent of the total) and 7186 were home grown. I have confidently predicted that this figure will rise to 60 per cent within two years as a consequence of the abolition of the Tier 2 visa cap in June 2018.  I believe that the NHS is approaching an existential crisis with so many unattended and unsolved problems, two of which are described in this article. Are we sleep-walking towards a healthcare disaster in the UK and approaching the point of no return as the Department of Health oversees a process of managed decline?


drudgereport--2019-07-01--STUDY Nurses Tired Overworked 1 in 8 Takes Meds

STUDY: Nurses Tired, Overworked; 1 in 8 Takes Meds...

SAN ANTONIO, Texas — A staggering number of nurses may suffer from insomnia and about one in eight admit to taking medication to help them stay awake during the day, a new study finds.  The findings, presented at SLEEP 2019, the 33rd annual meeting of the Associated Professional Sleep Societies, add to a growing list of studies that sound the alarm on the condition of health care practitioners forced to work long, stressful shifts. This latest work reveals that 31% of nurses show symptoms consistent with chronic insomnia. The same amount also show signs of shift work disorder, which happens when one’s work shift coincides with the time they’d normally be asleep.  “We were surprised by the number of nurses potentially suffering from common sleep disorders, most notably, chronic insomnia and shift work disorder,” says lead author Dr. Francis Christian, a second-year fellow at the University of Oklahoma Health Sciences Center in Oklahoma City, in a statement.  Perhaps even more frightening is that 13% of nurses rely on medication to help keep them awake, and 4.5% battle excessive daytime sleepiness. In addition, more than a quarter (27%) take sleeping medication before bed, while nearly half (49%) typically log about 6.6 hours of sleep each night — less than the recommended seven hours.  CLICK HERE TO SUBSCRIBE TO OUR WEEKLY NEWSLETTER & GET THE LATEST STUDIES FROM STUDYFINDS.ORG IN YOUR INBOX!  The study also found that 18.5% of nurses have a moderate-to-severe risk for obstructive sleep apnea.  Results were conceived from an online survey of 1,165 nurses working at a medical center. Respondents answered questions about their sleep schedules, symptoms they experience, and medications they use.  “Nurses are at increased risk for circadian rhythm sleep-wake disorders such as shift work disorder,” says Christian, who notes that nearly 100,000 deaths occur each year in U.S. hospitals as a result of medical errors. “Recognition needs to take place so that we can screen appropriately and make scheduling modifications to help alleviate the burden of shift work disorder among nurses.”  Like studies? Follow us on Facebook!


eveningstandard--2019-05-05--What Nurses Wear Outpouring of support for NHS nurse told she did not beat London Marathon record

What Nurses Wear: Outpouring of support for NHS nurse told she did not beat London Marathon record 'because she wore trousers'

Nurses are showing support for a fellow NHS worker told her London Marathon record attempt would only count if she ran the race in a skirt.  Jessica Anderson, a Royal London Hospital nurse, wanted to be the quickest woman to finish the 26.2 mile race dressed as a nurse on Sunday.  However despite crossing the finish line in 3.08:22, beating the previous time, Guinness World Records (GWR) told Ms Anderson her attempt would not count.  The reason given was that she was wearing scrubs with trousers and GWR rules stipulate a nurse's uniform must include a blue or white dress, a pinafore apron and a traditional nurse's cap.  Ms Anderson was told scrubs are too close to the fancy dress requirements for a doctor's uniform.  Since sharing this news, which has prompted GWR to reassess the attempt, there has been an outpouring of comradery for Ms Anderson using the hashtag "#WhatNursesWear".  This has seen multiple colleagues point out that they often wear scrubs, with trousers, and their uniforms also vary.  One, sharing a photo of her in a navy tunic with trousers, said: “Nursing is not about whether we wear dresses, tunics or scrubs, not whether we wear white, blue or navy; it’s about delivering the best care for our patients and their families and I can absolutely promise you @GWR that a dress does not make you better at that!”  Another nurse, based in Dundee, wrote: “Sometimes I wear tunics and trousers, sometimes I wear scrubs. I also wear hard work, professionalism, care, compassion, a shoulder to cry on, blood, sweat, tears and every other bodily fluid you could imagine. I never wear a dress though, oddly enough.”  One using the hashtag simply wrote: “We don’t wear fancy dress hate to break it to you.”  Many said the GWP rules regarding the uniform were “outdated”.  Ms Anderson previously told Runner’s World: “I was quite taken aback when I read that they'd rejected my application.  “Some of the nurses I work with do wear dresses, but mostly we wear scrubs or a tunic and trousers.”  Ms Anderson, who has raised more than £3,000 for Barts Health NHS Trust, hopes GWR will stop "reinforcing old gender stereotypes".  “I'm sure Guinness World Records don't intend to cause offence, but it would be nice if they decided to revise their criteria," she said.  GWR has pledged to look into their costume policy and a statement said: “Inclusiveness and respect are values that Guinness World Records holds extremely dear.  “While we always need to ensure we can differentiate between categories, it is quite clear that this record title is long overdue a review, which we will conduct as a priority in the coming days."  The official world record for a woman running a marathon in a nurse's uniform is held by Sarah Dudgeon.  She set a time of 3:08:54 in 2015.


eveningstandard--2019-06-27--More nurses from EU leaving NHS than are joining figures reveal

More nurses from EU leaving NHS than are joining, figures reveal

The number of European nurses leaving the NHS continues to outpace the number attracted from the Continent, figures revealed today.  A total of 3,675 nurses and health visitors quit NHS hospitals and community health services in the year to March, while 2,375 joined, according to NHS Digital.  NHS chiefs have raised concerns Brexit will cause the supply to dry up.  The NHS has about 40,000 nursing vacancies, including about 8,900 in London.  Today’s figures show the total number of NHS doctors is up 2.6 per cent to 119,597. The number of nurses is up 1.5 per cent to 324,872.  About twice as many doctors and nurses from the rest of the world have joined than left in the last year.


rferl--2019-09-18--North Macedonias Doctors Nurses Protest Hospital Assaults Demand Better Pay

North Macedonia's Doctors, Nurses Protest Hospital Assaults, Demand Better Pay

Hundreds of health-care professionals employed in North Macedonia's public hospitals have rallied in protest of increasing verbal and physical assaults on hospital personnel by patients and relatives.      Health Minister Venko Filipce joined the protests on September 18 in Skopje organized by the Association of Specialists and Young Doctors, which demanded better security at hospitals.      The group, composed mainly of doctors and nurses, complained of staffing shortages at hospitals and an overall disintegrating health-care system in the country that has eroded trust between patients and doctors.      Filipce acknowledged the problems, saying they are "complex" and require "work to restore trust...and the status of health-care providers needs to be further improved."      The medical association said it had recorded 15 cases of violence at state-run hospitals this year, leaving at least one doctor badly injured.      In the past decade, there were five such cases, according to the agency.      Solicitation of bribes at hospitals angers patients, the association admitted, adding that the government could address the problem by increasing the salaries of hospital workers.      "The country is facing challenges in achieving better health and well-being because of the fragmented governance and organization of health services," a World Health Organization report published this year said.      "A previous assessment identified the shortage of health workers and the need to more strongly emphasize primary health care to improve the quality, continuity and overall performance of health services for noncommunicable diseases as key interventions needed."


thedailyrecord--2019-08-23--Brave nurses get ready to take on 5k trek through mud and water for St Johns Hospital

Brave nurses get ready to take on 5k trek through mud and water for St John's Hospital

Five nurses are preparing for an exhausting trek through mud and water to raise funds for St John’s Hospital in Livingston.  The mental health nurses all work in Ward 3 at the hospital and the money raised will go toward creating a more therapeutic environment for the 65 inpatients they have at any one time.  Their patients have a variety of mental illnesses, like anxiety, bipolar, dementia, depression and schizophrenia so the nurses hope to use the funds to make the ward a better and more enjoyable space.  The nurses, Dan McGalpine, Debbie Robertson, Eimear Menton, Kerry Pender and Kirsty Millar, will be taking on the 5km sprint Spartan challenge on September 15.  To get to the end they will have to run through the mud and water, jump over fire, scale high walls and dangle from monkey bars, but they are not daunted and keen to help their patients.  Speaking to the Courier, Debbie Robertson said: “We decided to do the Spartan to raise money for the ward to provide more services for more advanced rehabilitation and relaxation therapies for individuals on the ward. We feel passionate about offering more holistic care on the ward and wish to make the experience as therapeutic as possible for individuals obviously going through a difficult period in their lives.”  The nurses have a £500 target and donations can be made here: https://www.justgiving.com/crowdfunding/ward3-warriors?


thedailyrecord--2019-11-11--Psychiatric unit nurses call in union over patient attacks on staff

Nurses from psychiatric units at a Scots hospital claim four members of staff have gone off sick after being assaulted by patients.  One worker is understood to have a broken collarbone while others are believed to have injuries including bruised ribs.  Staff from the acute admissions unit and the intensive psychiatric care unit at Inverclyde Royal Hospital in Greenock have accused bosses of understaffing their departments.  And they claim that they have been forced to deal with patients armed with potential weapons.  Union officials believe the situation at the hospital is so serious “staff and patients are at genuine risk of serious injury or long-term damage to their health and well-being”. Union officials claim four were assaulted but the NHS insist the figure is two.  Trade union Unison is demanding NHS Greater Glasgow & Clyde (NHSGGC) takes action to address a catalogue of concerns.  In a letter to CEO Jane Grant, the union said: “Attempts by local stewards to raise concerns and reach resolutions have been unsuccessful.  “Members have requested that Unison raise their concerns and call for an urgent independent task force response to ensure that staff, patients and the public are provided with a safe environment.”  The union also claim a patient brought from prison was admitted with “numerous knives and razor blades attached to his person”.  Unison’s Matt McLaughlin said: “If people are being delivered to these units equipped to cause harm then someone could be killed. I hope that doesn’t happen but it will be on the health board if it does occur.”  Labour’s health spokeswoman Monica Lennon said: “It’s shocking that little is being done to protect health workers.”  NHSGGC said: “We take very seriously any assaults or acts of violence against our staff and have a dedicated team of experts who train and support staff in techniques to reduce and manage violence.  “We have recently successfully recruited five new members of staff to join the team which will reduce the requirement for additional bank or agency staff to support the team.”


theguardianuk--2019-01-30--Irelands nurses and midwives begin first day of strikes over pay

Ireland's nurses and midwives begin first day of strikes over pay

Tens of thousands of nurses and midwives have gone on strike in Ireland for better pay and conditions but the government has rebuffed their demands, saying it needs to save funds for a possible no-deal Brexit.  More than 35,000 walked out on Wednesday morning and in near-freezing temperatures mounted pickets at clinics and hospitals, causing the cancellation of services for about 25,000 patients.  The 24-hour strike by the Irish Nurses and Midwives Organisation (INMO) is the first of six days of industrial action planned for the next two weeks.  The union called its first national strike in two decades after talks with the government and the Health Service Executive, a state agency, broke down.  The INMO says nurses and midwives work longer hours and are paid less money than in 2008, when the global financial crisis prompted austerity measures.  “No nurse or midwife wants to go on strike, but we have been forced into this position by a government that just isn’t listening,” said Tony Fitzpatrick, its industrial relations director.  The government says nurses are to receive significant pay rises under an existing public service agreement and that the additional rise they are striking for would cost about €300m (£260m) a year, blowing a hole in the budget and triggering demands for hefty rises from other public sector workers.  The prime minister, Leo Varadkar, told the Dáil on Tuesday that fiscal responsibility was all the more urgent because of the increased probability of the UK crash out of the EU without a deal on 29 March.  “I have to be a taoiseach for the whole country,” he said. “We will have to find a lot of money to save people’s jobs.”  Earlier on Tuesday, the Department of Finance said a no-deal Brexit would slash growth in Ireland and cost potential 55,000 jobs by 2023.  Varadkar rejected opposition accusations that he was using Brexit as a stick to beat nurses and midwives. “This isn’t made up – and it’s not about blaming anyone,” he said. The only one to blame for Brexit was Britain, he said.  The state’s health budget – and credibility – is already reeling from the cost of a new national children’s hospital in Dublin, which is scheduled to open in 2022. Budgeted in 2016 at €983m, the cost has ballooned to €1.4bn and may exceed €1.7bn.


theindependent--2019-05-29--The shortage of nurses could have dire consequences just ask those of us who see it every day

The shortage of nurses could have dire consequences – just ask those of us who see it every day

It’s worrying to hear that two-thirds of nurses feel that they are struggling to provide good care to patients who are dying as a result of staff shortages, as Marie Curie has warned today. Sadly, to those of us in the profession, this comes as no surprise.  Too many nurses find themselves pushed from pillar to post, trying to make sure patients are comfortable but unable to go the extra mile due to increasingly heavy workloads.  When it comes to specialist end-of-life care, allowing people the space to open up about their fears and wishes, and what they need support with, is essential. Without it, people living with cancer will not get the personalised care that allows them to live as fully as possible and ensures their end of life wishes are respected.  Difficulties in recruiting to the social-care workforce also mean that people with cancer who want and need personal care to support them to remain in their own home are not always able to get it. While the need for a fully funded plan for social care has never been more urgent, the long-promised green paper has been kicked into the long grass.  Nurses and people living with terminal illnesses across the country deserve action today. The government must make delivering a plan for our workforce, which realises the ambitions of the NHS long-term plan, an urgent priority.  Former Labour MPs Charles Clarke and Bob Ainsworth are among those rushing to support Alastair Campbell following his expulsion from the Labour Party for openly admitting he voted Lib Dem in the recent European elections.  As someone who isn’t in the Labour Party I think Campbell’s expulsion was just.  Which serious political organisation would accept such open disloyalty?  Campbell had his day in power when he was Tony Blair's communications chief and his most notorious action in post was to “sex up” the dossier on Iraqi weapon capabilities so it matched the false claims of the US administration.  The dossier played a key role in facilitating the invasion of Iraq and the bloodshed that followed.  It is significant that as MPs both Charles Clarke and Bob Ainsworth voted for Blair’s war on Iraq.  Campbell facilitated western aggression against the people of Iraq which left, at minimum, 500,000 dead.  It is a disgrace that Campbell is at liberty to openly and continually undermine Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership of the Labour Party.  Campbell should arguably be serving time as a war criminal. Good riddance to bad rubbish.  Ann Widdecombe is, I believe, a churchgoer. You would think therefore that peace, cooperation and "love your neighbour as you would yourself" would be her message.  But the Brexit Party, of which is she now a member and MEP, wants the complete opposite.  Mind you, she is not alone: many politicians attend church and are greedy, selfish and, in some cases, warmongers.  Oh well, like with Ukip, I expect the Brexit Party will self-destruct.  There are none now, but Farage’s Brexit Party has 29 seats, so not much of a change. The Remain parties secured 27 seats in total, while Labour took 10 and the Conservatives four.  However Remain parties have 40 per cent of the vote, and Farage 35 per cent.  I am left thinking the wisest thing is to compromise and support Theresa May’s deal  I agree Uefa has dropped the ball over the Baku final and with the reasons given. But why no mention of an obvious further reason: the carbon footprint of this 90 minutes of football?  Uefa is not only lightweight on human rights (and seems to be uncaring on the travel costs to football fans) but also seemingly oblivious to the climate crisis, and has missed an open goal in showing some green credentials.  So I was reading the article on Indiana abortion law and checked the date. Nope! It wasn’t April Fools. I read the same sentence about Justice Clarence Thomas several times. He accused those who use birth control of practising eugenics.  This implies one of four things; either that men have full knowledge of the DNA of each of their sperm and can control which one will fertilise the egg, or that women have full knowledge of the DNA of each of their eggs and can control which one will make the fallopian journey and get fertilised, or that both the aforementioned are true. Or else, Justice Thomas is absolutely bonkers. I mean, can you imagine his pillow talk, “No, no, not you, the sporty one with the gentle personality.”  The Supreme Court would be better served by Thomas the Tank Engine.


theindependent--2019-12-11--Using temporary nurses can increase risk of patients dying, warns new study

Patients are more likely to die on wards staffed by a high number of temporary nurses, a study has found.  Researchers say the findings, published in the Journal of Nursing Scholarship, are a warning sign that the common practice by many hospitals of relying on agency nurses is not a risk-free option for patients.  The University of Southampton study found that risk of death increased by 12 per cent for every day a patient experienced a high level of temporary staffing – defined as 1.5 hours of agency nursing a day per patient.  For an average ward, this increased risk could apply when between a third and a half of the staff on each shift are temporary staff, according to Professor Peter Griffiths, one of the study’s authors.  He told The Independent: “We know that patients are put at risk of harm when nurse staffing is lower than it should be.  “One of the responses to that is to fill the gaps with temporary nursing staff, and that is an absolutely understandable thing to do, but when using a higher number of temporary staff there is an increased risk of harm.  “It is not a solution to the problem.”  The UK currently has more than 44,000 nursing vacancies across the NHS, with hospitals often using temporary staff to fill the gaps.  Nurse staffing has been a major subject of debate during the general election campaign, with the Tories promising 31,000 new nurses and efforts to retain 19,000 existing staff. Labour has pledged to re-instate student nurse bursaries.  The NHS is drawing up a national workforce plan, but a leaked draft suggested that the UK could still face a shortage of 20,000 nurses by 2024.  The research team from the university’s school of health sciences looked at data for 138,133 patients who were admitted to a large south of England hospital between April 2012 and April 2015.  While the study could not say what caused the increased risk, a clear association was found between levels of temporary staff and deaths. It looked at the levels of staff measured as hours per patient, per day, and accounted for other risks and general staffing levels.  It found the use of temporary staff was common, with three quarters of days involving the use of temporary nurses.  The paper said the “hazard of death was increased by 12 per cent for every day a patient experienced high levels (1.5 hr or more per day) of temporary staffing”.  The study also found a link with the use of temporary nurse assistant staff, with the risk of death increasing by 6 per cent on days when patients had more than 0.5 hours of temporary assistant staffing.  Professor Griffiths said that there may be many reasons why there was an increased risk, including staff not being familiar with the ward or processes, and staff working extra hours – known as “bank” shifts – and potentially being overworked as a result.  Another reason, he added, could be that the wards were culturally “bad” because of poor leadership and consequently had a lot of vacancies.


theirishtimes--2019-01-18--Psychiatric nurses planning strike not attending talks with oversight group

Psychiatric nurses, who are scheduled to go on strike next month, will not attend a meeting on Friday with the group which oversees compliance with the current public service agreement.  The Psychiatric Nurses Association (PNA) said it could not attend the talks as its executive committee is also scheduled to meet on Friday.  The PNA, which is not affiliated to the Irish Congress of Trade Unions (Ictu), has previously expressed its unhappiness with the oversight group as it is currently structured.  The oversight group is made up of representatives of public service management, as well as the public service committee of Ictu. It is chaired by an official of the Workplace Relations Commission.  The PNA has previously argued that it was promised by the Government that an alternative structure would be established.  The Irish Nurses and Midwives Organisation (INMO) and a number of teachers’s unions will attend meetings with the oversight on Friday.  The group is likely to consider assertions made by nursing unions that under the current accord, the Government could deal with health service recruitment and retention issues by increasing pay, without this leading to knock-on claims by other categories of staff.  This view is strongly disputed by the Government.  Other unions such as Fórsa and Siptu have publicly said that if nurses secured additional payments outside of the terms of the current agreement, they would seek similar arrangements for their members.  Talks at the oversight group meeting are not expected to involve negotiations on pay; the HSE and Department of Health have said they will put forward proposals to nursing unions at direct talks next Monday.  The INMO is scheduled to stage the first of six days of strike action on January 30th.  The PNA is to put an overtime ban in place on January 31th and escalate its industrial action to work stoppages in February.  Separately, three teachers’s unions – the INTO, ASTI and TUI – will also meet with the oversight group on Friday.  The unions are expected to set out why members are unhappy with Government proposals last autumn that addressed lower pay rates for staff recruited after 2011.  These proposals centred on provisions to allow those on lower pay rates to catch up with longer-serving colleagues by jumping two increments on their pay scale over a number of years.  The Government estimated the initiative would cost nearly €200 million by the time it was completed in 2026.  In a ballot in October, primary school teachers who are members of the INTO voted against the Government initiative on new-entrant pay by a margin of 53 to 47 per cent.  In December, members of the country’s largest secondary teachers’s union, the ASTI, also rejected Government proposals to address the controversial two-tier pay system in a ballot.  The unions argued the Government’s proposals did not fully address the two-tier pay issue.  Neither union has yet asked members to vote on industrial action.  In October, members of the TUI backed the Government proposals in a ballot.  However the TUI said its members in September 2017 had backed a campaign of industrial action as directed by its leadership on the issue of pay inequality.  The TUI said on Thursday this mandate for industrial action “can still be activated by the union if and when it sees fit to do so”.


theirishtimes--2019-01-24--Mental health services to be hit as psychiatric nurses set for overtime ban

The Psychiatric Nurses Association (PNA) is to put in place an overtime ban on a number of days in the weeks ahead, starting next Thursday, as part of a campaign for improved pay to tackle recruitment and retention difficulties.  An overtime ban will have a significant impact on mental health services across the country, psychiatric nurses have claimed.  The PNA said mental health services were very reliant on overtime and staff provided by agencies.  PNA general secretary Peter Hughes said the HSE spent €1million per week on nursing staff from outside agencies for psychiatric services and a further €300,000 on overtime.  Psychiatric nurses are to escalate their industrial action to a series of strikes towards the middle of February.  Meanwhile, members of the Irish Nurses and Midwives Organisation (INMO) are to stage a 24-hour strike on Wednesday.  The PNA and the INMO are meeting with public service management on Thursday in an attempt to avert the planned industrial action  INMO general secretary Phil Ní Sheaghdha said community services as well as hospitals would be affected by the work stoppage on Wednesday.  She said public health nurses and community general nurses would deal with emergency calls.  Ms Ní Sheaghdha said community nursing day centres would be closed.  She also said community nursing units would not operate as normal during the first day of strike but would be involved in subsequent stoppages.  Arriving at the talks at the Workplace Relations Commission (WRC) Mr Hughes said the PNA had held talks with the HSE on contingency arrangements to apply if the overtime ban went ahead next week.  “We have given a list to the HSE of the areas where the overtime ban will apply. If there are not sufficient staff to take over a unit, then our members will not be taking over those units,” Mr Hughes said.  He said health service management needed to put forward “significant, realistic proposals” .  Ms Ní Sheaghdga said the union had had a lot of discussion internally since the first round of talks at the WRC on Wednesday and that its position had not changed.  She said there was a “massive crisis in recruitment and retention in nursing and midwifery”.  “We have to look at the conditions nurses and midwives are working under and we also have to look at their remuneration. Otherwise we are going to continue with the cycle of constant recruitment but no net increase in your workforce.”


theirishtimes--2019-01-28--Government has not tabled any plans to prevent nurses strike says union

The Government has not tabled any new initiatives to try to avert a 24-hour strike by nurses this Wednesday, with further work stoppages planned, union sources have said.  The Irish Nurses and Midwives Organisation (INMO) has appealed directly to Taoiseach Leo Varadkar and his senior staff to table plans that would help call the strike off.  Government sources insisted on Sunday that no proposals for additional pay rises could be tabled. Sources said Government could consider other proposals for nurses that did not involve additional pay but that no decisions had been taken on what these could be.  A spokeswoman for Minister for Health Simon Harris last night again appealed for unions and health management to use the time between now and Wednesday to avoid the dispute going ahead.  “The Minister has said repeatedly engagement is key to this dispute being avoided and he hopes the remaining time is used by both sides to prevent industrial action from proceeding,” the spokeswoman added.  The levels of nursing which will be provided across the health service during Wednesday’s strike will pose real challenges, according to the HSE.  It said it had concerns about the scale of the planned 24-hour work stoppage by nearly 40,000 nurses across hospitals and in the community, as well as about the number of services that would be affected.  The planned strike by members of the INMO on Wednesday will be the first in a series of six scheduled work stoppages in the weeks ahead as part of a dispute over pay and staffing issues.  The HSE said it was continuing to engage with the INMO to secure further agreement “to allow us to operate safely” amid strike action.  “To put it into context, for a single day of the dispute, up to 13,000 patients will have their outpatient appointment cancelled and a further 2,000 planned procedures will not go ahead.  “In terms of community services, thousands of appointments will be cancelled.  “While these patients and clients will be rescheduled, it will affect our ability to treat further patients in a timely way. Also, if the subsequent days proceed, it will have a cumulative impact on wait times and volumes.”  Meanwhile, psychiatric nurses on Thursday are scheduled to put in place an overtime ban in the mental health service.  Members of the Psychiatric Nurses Association (PNA) plan to escalate their campaign of industrial action to full strikes towards the middle of February.  The Irish Times reported on Saturday that HSE senior management had warned in a confidential internal memo that the organisation’s ability to deliver safe, sustainable services would be “compromised” if the planned nurses’ strike went ahead on Wednesday.  Talks aimed at averting the stoppage broke down on Friday evening.  In a statement, the HSE said efforts would continue to avert strike action and health service management would “work with INMO to ensure appropriate arrangements are in place to support safe care provision.  “The threatened industrial action poses real challenges to service delivery given the scale of the action proposed across our hospitals and community services. Our objective is to deliver safe services during the day of the strike.  “To this end, our hospitals and community services have put contingency plans in place for the day and we have secured exemptions on some critical service areas.  “The levels of nursing which will be provided across the health service on the day of action will pose real challenges, particularly in the winter period when our hospitals and services are operating at close to 100 per cent occupancy.”


theirishtimes--2019-02-03--Overseas nurses say Government does not respect Irish workforce

Irish nurses working abroad say the Government does not respect the workforce, and gives emigrants no reason to come home.  On Saturday, The Irish Nurses and Midwives Organisation (INMO) announced two additional strike dates amid an ongoing row over pay and staffing retention issues.  The strikes will take place on February 19th and 21st, in addition to action on February 5th and 7th, and February 12th - 14th.  Anna Enright, from Tralee, Co Kerry, has lived and worked as a nurse in Melbourne, Australia, for five years.  “When I first started I worked in hospitals in the midlands on three-month contracts for €13.60 an hour,” she said.  “We were worked to the bone in unsafe conditions because of chronic understaffing.  “There was no support, no room for job growth, not to mention the salary.  “There are amazing nurses in Ireland, they work so hard considering what they’re put through.  “I’m very angry over it, I’ve been speaking to the girls at home who are striking, my heart breaks for them.  “I honestly feel bad, and kind of guilty at how good we have it over here, we make money that allows us to have a great lifestyle, we enjoy work, are so supported to grow in our field.  “Nursing is highly respected over here, whereas I feel in Ireland it never will be, to be honest I can’t see a change happening, the Government don’t respect nursing as a profession to increase our pay, it’s not that we are greedy for money, we need to be able to live.”  More than 30,000 nurses took to picket lines in freezing conditions outside hospitals across the country last week after talks aimed at resolving the issue failed.  Nurses are calling for a pay increase of about 12 per cent, but the Government has said it is not in the position to borrow money.  The Minister for Finance, Paschal Donohoe, said: “The nursing unions are seeking a significant increase in pay over and above all of the benefits of the current Agreement seeking parity with other health professionals.  “Concession of this pay claim, even if possible, would have serious consequences for the public finances and for public pay policy generally with estimated costs of 300 million euro annually based on a 12 per cent claim in pay.  “However, it would not end there.  “It would, I have no doubt, generate knock-on or ‘leapfrogging’ claims from the rest of the public service workforce, where there are already other well aired pay grievances.”  Last week, protests were organised in Melbourne, Sydney and London by Irish nurses to show their solidarity with their colleagues at home. – PA


theirishtimes--2019-02-11--Strong support for nurses among those affected by strike

Three days of strike action and the threat of more has done little to dent support for the nurses – even among patients directly affected by the dispute.  The impact of the strike, which has led to the cancellation of thousands of operations and tens of thousands of appointments, is evident from the stories of patients who contacted The Irish Times in recent days about their cancelled treatments. Equally striking, though, is the level of support for the nurses’ cause.  Sarah Thompson, from east Clare, waited five months for an appointment with a vascular consultant in University Hospital Limerick, only for it to be cancelled last week due to the industrial action. She needs sign-off from the consultant for her application for treatment of her lymphoedema in Germany under the HSE’s treatment abroad scheme. And because she is a single parent who can travel only in the summer, she is on a tight timeline for her application.  The consultant will see her, but she thinks that may take several months. “I still strongly support the nurses. I have been admitted to hospital two or three times in the last two years, through A&E, and I have seen first-hand their care and kindness and incredible hard work – in obvious overstretched circumstances.”  Sarah Wassell, from Templemore, Co Tipperary, says her father’s planned lymph-node biopsy was cancelled on the first day of industrial action. “This surgery is vital as it’s expected his melanoma has spread but this procedure is absolutely needed to continue his treatment.”  Nonetheless, she says she totally supports the strike, having seen nurses work “tirelessly” in emergency departments, critical care and rehabilitation.  “I’ve witnessed many areas of healthcare and can say undoubtedly that more nurses are needed. The work they put in is amazing.”  Caroline Wolfe, who missed a hospital consultation on Tuesday last week due to the strike, says it is more important for nurses to get adequate pay and have their staffing issues resolved, even if they have to strike to achieve this.  Kathleen Heaslip said her sister-in-law had to wait in the emergency department for five hours after being brought to hospital in an ambulance. “My brother was told by a nurse that ‘it’s not their fault she is waiting so long – don’t you know there is a strike on?’.”  “I think it’s a disgrace that people who sign up to help others can so easily walk off the job. I do believe in a pay rise but we can do this in a different way. Go through the correct channel. If I downed tools at work I’d be told to go home and don’t come back.”  Shan Lin’s father has stage 1 oesophageal cancer. Due to the strike, his diagnosis was delayed by two weeks and surgery by three weeks.  “This is so terrible for my dad as if the cancer develops into stage 2, the chance of him being alive in the next five years is going to drop from 80 per cent to less than 50 per cent. Every day counts in his situation but due to the nurses’ strike, there is nothing the hospital or doctors can do.  “It is so stressful for the patient and their family that the hospital service was impacted, even for cancer patients, due to the nurses’ strike. The country needs to do better. I’m very disappointed at this situation.”