SOUTH AUSTRALIA: State Health Minister Jack Snelling has lashed out at the state’s public health pathology provider for covering up the fact that about 100 men received PSA test results indicating false positives for prostate cancer.

SA Pathology executive director Ken BARR has been sacked and an independent review has been ordered.  The errors were uncovered when a suspicious urologist ordered new tests for about 30 patients at a different laboratory and they returned negative results.

“It is completely unacceptable for me to be being told by journalists about a problem long before I’ve had an opportunity to be appropriately briefed by the department,” Mr Snelling told ABC radio.  He also took aim at SA Pathology’s “cryptic statements” about the bungle.

One statement reads: “As part of our continuous quality improvement program, SA Pathology regularly reviews its tests.

“Whilst our PSA results have been highly accurate and reliable in the core range, we have moved to improve values below 0.15ug/L, where some patients have required repeat testing.”

Mr Snelling says this is far from the “full and frank disclosure” both he and the public expect.

“I don’t think anyone reading that would think that there’s a problem … and it’s disgraceful.

“I do think that there are a very small number of people in SA Health who don’t think they’re accountable to anyone.”

SA Health chief executive David Swan says he found out about the inaccurate test results on Saturday.

“I am very concerned that patients have been led to believe they may have prostate cancer by false readings,” he says.

SA urologist Dr Peter Sutherland, who discovered the error, says it’s possible some men have had unnecessary radiotherapy.

4 April 2016

MELBOURNE:  A Coroner recommended criminal action be considered against a midwife after finding her gross failures contributed to a mother’s death after a home birth.

Coroner Peter White said while Gaye DEMANUELE had taken steps to deregister herself, she kept practising as a midwife after Caroline Lovell, 36 died on 24 January 2012, from blood loss after the birth of her daughter.

Coroner White said Mrs Lovell begged for an ambulance to be called but was left in the birthing pool for more than an hour after delivery.  He said Mrs Lovell fell unconscious and had to be lifted out and taken to hospital, where she later died.

“I find Caroline literally begged for ambulance to be called,” Coroner White said.

Coroner White said Ms DEMANUELE failed to assess Mrs Lovell’s medical history, failed to create a safe environment for the delivery and neglected to properly gauge her blood pressure after the delivery.

“I find that this death was preventable,” he ruled in the Melbourne Coroner’s Court yesterday, recommending the DPP look into possible action against Ms DEMANUELE.

THE state’s health watchdog has sharpened its focus on investigations relating to Australia’s unfolding women’s prolapse transvaginal mesh disaster after serious complaints, including that a doctor allegedly falsely claimed he had ethics approval to conduct a mesh device study at a major public hospital.

Medical Error Action Group founder Lorraine Long said it was appropriate to refer to the mesh device “disaster” because of the failure of regulators in Australia and overseas to adequately assess the devices, monitor problems and respond quickly.

The Therapeutic Goods Administration’s admission its assessment of the mesh devices from 2003 was not “mature” and lacked rigour was not a surprise, Ms Long said.

“That says everything, doesn’t it? It’s not good enough,” she said.

http://www.thecourier.com.au/story/3800739/watchdog-focuses-on-mesh/?cs=2452

http://www.coomaexpress.com.au/story/3800739/watchdog-focuses-on-mesh/?cs=4081.

SYDNEY:  The doctor responsible for giving dozens of chemotherapy patients incorrect drug dosages at St Vincent’s Hospital, Darlinghurst, has taken immediate leave and will never return to work.

Up to 70 cancer patients were given incorrect low doses of the chemotherapy drug carboplatin over a 3-year period, with five suffering recurrences of their disease.

Oncologist John GRYGIEL gave the low doses of carboplatin – about a half to one-third of the normal amounts – to neck and head patients.  The ABC exposed the scandal.

The hospital knew about the errors since at least August 2015 but failed to tell any patients for about six months.

NEW SOUTH WALES:  Two surgically amputated human legs that ended up in a tip came from Newcastle’s John Hunter Hospital complex, a preliminary investigation has found.

The missing in action Minister for Health Jillian Skinner has confirmed the clinical waste originated from either NSW Health Pathology or John Hunter Hospital which are located on the same grounds.

The EPA is investigating, still.

NEW SOUTH WALES: The Newcastle community is horrified after the discovery of human body parts, including 2 legs, at a local rubbish tip.

The Summerhill Waste Management Centre became the centre of a murder investigation on Tuesday, 16 February 2016, after a random inspection of an area of the tip uncovered the disturbing find.

7 News revealed on Wednesday the body parts had been surgically removed and dumped with garbage instead of being dispose of properly.

The gruesome find discovered by a shocked council inspector apparently included a left and right leg cut below the knee. 

The parts were buried for up to six weeks, suggesting that they could have come from a cadaver.

Homicide detectives were called to the site along with a forensic pathologist who determined the amputation was done by a professional.

Also found were viles of blood and bio-hazard bags, all of which should have been incinerated.
 Lorraine Long from the Medical Error Action Group said she was shocked but not surprised.

“This is hospital management for you at its best,” she told 7 News.



“No system, don’t care. But the point of all of this is, no respect for the dead.”

The Wallsend tip was business as usual on Wednesday as NSW health authorities scrambled to find the contractor responsible.

Shadow Health Minister Walt Secord told 7 News the situation was ‘absolutely unacceptable’.

“There has to be an investigation by the state government… we must always remember these human remains belong to loved ones.”

The investigation is expected to be lengthy, but DNA testing could be a way of identifying the remains.

VIDEO Human body parts found in hospital garbage

https://au.news.yahoo.com/a/30849347/council-worker-finds-human-body-parts-in-shocking-hospital-tip-discovery/

16 February 2016

VICTORIA:  The baby death count at Melbourne’s Bacchus Marsh Hospital has been changed to 16 deaths in the space of two years after a health department

A fresh investigation into Bacchus Marsh and Melton Hospital has uncovered seven more infant deaths, bringing the total number of deaths at the maternity unit to 18, the ABC has reported.

In October 2015 the Victorian Health Department revealed it had asked Professor Euan Wallace to probe 11 stillbirths or deaths in 2013 and 2014 at the hospital.

Here’s the story from ABC’s 7:30 program last night – http://www.abc.net.au/7.30/content/2015/s4407113.htm

NSW Ministry of Health has been forced to reveal the 7 hospitals where babies were mixed up and given to the wrong mother to breastfeed.

These are the baby swap mix-up hospitals the NSW Minister for Health tried to keep secret:

CAMPBELLTOWN, GOSFORD, GRAFTON, JOHN HUNTER (Newcastle), TWEED HEADS, WESTMEAD and WOLLONGONG hospitals.

PARIS — Chief neuroscientist in Rennes, north western France: There’s no known antidote to drug in botched clinical trial.

1 brain dead, 5 others hospitalized.  Big pharma botches another drug trial.  Who is monitoring big pharma really?

http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/wireStory/chief-neuroscientist-rennes-antidote-drug-botched-clinical-trial-36312417

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/europe/chief-neuroscientist-in-rennes-theres-no-known-antidote-to-drug-in-botched-clinical-trial/2016/01/15/3f59bf88-bb9f-11e5-85cd-5ad59bc19432_story.html

http://bigstory.ap.org/article/9f5b4ab9202149a18f941132a8ff04b1/6-fall-ill-france-after-participating-clinical-trial