As South Australian nurses call for the right to refuse treatment to aggressive patients, the State Government has unveiled a new social media campaign aimed at curbing violence in hospital emergency departments. The campaign comprises a 30-second video which dramatises the type of hostile encounter routinely experienced by hospital staff. Health workers are dealing with violence on a daily basis, including being threatened with infected blood and having drink cans thrown at them, according to the Nursing and Midwifery Federation. Government statistics show the number of code black incidents, where the safety of hospital staff is threatened, is rising. So far in 2016–17 there have been 6,245 code blacks, compared to 4,765 at the same time in 2015–16. That increase is partly due to rising levels of substance abuse, including the drug ice, Health Minister Jack Snelling said. But it also reflects a greater propensity by staff to declare code black.
February 10, 2017
A sharp inhale of breath from those gathered in the public gallery of the Newcastle Supreme Court on Thursday. Then cheering and applause. And finally, tears. So many tears. Moments earlier Graham Anthony George Sloane, 68, had been found guilty of murder over the stabbing death of Windale aged-care worker Renee Mitchell.
February 10, 2017
Oamaru Hospital director of nursing and community services Colleen Moore is going to retire next week.
February 10, 2017
A rogue Westpac banker who fraudulently loaned millions of dollars to elderly pensioners, including a 98-year-old nursing home resident with advanced dementia, has been sentenced to three years’ jail. But he will be released in six months on a good behaviour bond. Westpac’s former Pacific Fair home lending manager David St Pierre faced a sentencing hearing in Southport District Court today after pleading guilty to the ‘calculated’ dishonesty. The court heard he arranged about $4 million in loans to mainly elderly customers to invest in a Ponzi scheme called Capital Growth International Club which later collapsed. The victims, including aged and disability pensioners, were loaned up to $565,000 each by Westpac after St Pierre, now 46, falsely inflated their incomes and/or assets. Customers were promised returns of up to 20 per cent a year to invest in CGIC and were told by St Pierre their money was ‘safe’. But they lost between $78,000 and $540,000 each after CGIC went into liquidation in 2011. The 98-year-old lost $440,000 while a 74-year-old male pensioner lost $448,000. Crown prosecutor Bruce Mumford told the court that St Pierre’s dishonesty was ‘calculated, elaborate and determined’. Judge David Kent QC said St Pierre had been either dishonest or ‘extremely reckless’. Defence barrister Chris Wilson said St Pierre, a father-of-four, had been sacked by Westpac, banned for life from the finance industry, gone bankrupt, publicly shamed and was now working as a car salesman. St Pierre was sentenced today after pleading guilty to the massive scam in November last year. He was originally charged with seven counts of fraud and was expected to face an eight-day trial but confessed to his crimes before he was to face a jury.
February 10, 2017
The Gold Coast’s best friend, philanthropist Dr James Wright, is in a fight of his life — again — after he returned from being honoured in Canberra to discover he has bowel cancer. The 89-year-old doctor, whose real name is Dr John F. Knight AM, will become patient again on Friday when he undergoes major surgery at the Sydney Adventist Hospital. “I’m not very pleased about it,” he said yesterday.
February 10, 2017
The Australian Nursing and Midwifery Federation and Alfred Health have a s.739 (Application to deal with a dispute) before Commissioner Cribb in the Fair Work Commission 11 Exhibition Street Melbourne.
February 10, 2017
The Health Services Union and Royal District Nursing Service Limited are ‘tooing and froing’ a s.739 (Application to deal with a dispute) before Commissioner Cribb in the Fair Work Commission 11 Exhibition Street Melbourne mid morning.
February 9, 2017
Della Lehmann has been informed via a 12 page adjudication that her dismissal from Mary Mackillop Aged Care SA was neither unfair, harsh or unreasonable. Ms Lehmann “shoved” an open bag of faeces and toilet paper in the face of a resident when the resident said “I do not poo”.
