It Seems Concerns About Our Health System Are Rising. Are They Justified?

This appeared last week:

Health system ‘at crisis tipping point’

Natasha Robinson

1 August, 2024

Australia’s health system is at a tipping point, with patients unable to afford basic care, hospitals critically overloaded, and a tide of chronic disease threatening to overwhelm all parts of the system.

The Australian Medical Association’s new 10-year vision for the future of the nation’s health paints a grim picture if the country is not able to structurally reform primary healthcare and the hospital system, with life expectancy threatening to head into reverse. The manifesto calls for urgent progress on further reforming Medicare and shifting funding towards preventive care.

The doctors’ group has described the state of healthcare in Australia as being locked in a ­“system-wide struggle”, with millions of Australians unable to access or afford to see a GP, growing logjams in public hospitals and a private system in need of reform.

The federal government is ­examining the viability of private hospitals and bureaucrats have for the past month been pouring over the books of operators. A recent meeting of private hospital bosses and private insurers was told the majority of private hospitals were operating at wafer-thin margins of less than 1.5 per cent and were in danger of bankruptcy.

The crisis in private hospitals is threatening to have severe knock-on effects for a public system already on its knees and beset by a system-wide staffing crisis, most acutely in psychiatry.

The AMA’s new vision for Australia’s health lays out a blueprint to transform the health system into one that values prevention as much as treatment, and views healthcare as an investment to be made, as opposed to a cost to be managed.

“While governments recognise the pervasive impact of poor health, healthcare is still viewed as a cost rather than a strategic investment,” said AMA president Steve Robson. “This creates a system that responds to poor health outcomes rather than preventing them. We need to change this thinking.”

Professor Robson will launch the new vision for Australia’s health at the AMA’s national conference at the Gold Coast on Friday. Danielle McMullen, a GP, former AMA (NSW) president and for the past two years vice-president of the federal AMA, was recently elected the next AMA president and will take over from Professor Robson in October.

She has said this is a pivotal time in health in which the system faced unprecedented pressures and has named the proper funding of general practice, reducing surgery waiting lists in public hospitals, ensuring private health insurance provides value and addressing the workforce crisis as pressing issues to be confronted.

As part of the AMA’s healthcare vision, members of the organisation named factors that were impeding timely and equitable access to care as the biggest issues of concern. These included long waiting lists for appointments, workforce shortages, public hospitals that are over capacity, the increasing costs of healthcare, and inadequate supply of services in many areas of Australia.

Widespread burnout among doctors following the pandemic was also highlighted. This was exacerbated by heavy administrative burdens, poor professional development, the impact of inadequate Medicare rebates and increasing cost of delivering care on practice viability, and the challenges navigating the labyrinth of regulatory and compliance requirements.

Professor Robson, under whose presidency the AMA advocated for significant increases in commonwealth investment in general practice and extra funding public hospitals, said the past two years had seen the beginning of important breakdowns in the silos in the health system and deeper collaboration across governments but enormous pressures remain.

Australia currently spends $9,365 per person and over 10 per cent of GDP on health. The country has a high number of years spent in ill-health compared to other OECD countries and is lagging in the prevention of chronic disease.

“Now is the time for innovative policies and measures to address the issues facing our healthcare system and ensure all Australians … have access to good healthcare.”

Here is the link:

https://www.theaustralian.com.au/health/health-system-at-crisis-tipping-point/news-story/c37f087728a0130666498df5e895a649

We have all heard these sort of calls a zillion times in the past and we always seem to have muddled through. The hard thing to discern just how severe the problems actually are and how they have changed in the last few years.

I have to say I don’t get the sense of looming catastrophe at present but I fear I may be out of touch with those as the coal face.

It would be good to hear from some who ae working down to pit as to how good or bad things overall are at present!

Let us all know how it is actually going!

David.

Talk About A Clinic Being Driven By A Pure Profit Motive With No Evidence Of Delivering Useful Health Improvement!

This popped up a few says ago:

The Sydney clinic barred from treating patients

By Angus Thomson

August 2, 2024 — 6.13pm

An alternative therapy clinic in Sydney’s north-west has been forced to close its doors as part of the state healthcare watchdog’s crackdown on a controversial medical procedure banned by regulators in the United States.

The NSW Health Care Complaints Commission issued an interim prohibition order against the Ozone Clinic in Castle Hill while it investigates a complaint made about it by a member of the public.

Some of the services advertised on the Ozone Clinic website, which has since been deleted but is available through an internet archive. Credit: WayBack Machine

A commission spokesperson said the order was necessary “to protect public health and safety” but said they could not comment on the specifics of the complaint during the investigation.

“This action follows the execution of a search warrant on July 25, 2024 as part of an ongoing investigation into ozone therapy practices, specifically intravenous and skin puncture procedures,” the spokesperson said. “Public safety is paramount when seeking alternative health treatments.”

The commission said no person working for the Ozone Clinic should deliver medication intravenously or through skin puncture to any member of the public while the ban was in place.

An Ozone Clinic spokeswoman said it was “regretful” that the HCCC had levelled allegations against the clinic, and said she stood by the safety of ozone therapy.

“The Ozone Clinic has operated in the community with a strong commitment to improving the lives of those who come through our doors,” she said. “We are hopeful that the process that ensues will be of educational value for the HCCC and anyone interested in this type of therapy.”

Ozone therapy involves introducing ozone, a form of oxygen, into the patient’s body. When administered intravenously, the gas is usually dissolved into blood taken from the patient and then delivered back into the body.

The clinic’s website, since deleted but accessible through internet archives, claims to have treated more than 7000 patients. It promotes ozone as a natural detoxifier, antiviral, antibiotic, antifungal and antiparasitic which “resets the mitochondria” and is a “natural immune system booster”.

This is despite the US Food and Drug Administration noting that, in order to be effective as a germ-killer, ozone “must be present in a concentration far greater than that which can be safely tolerated by man and animals”.

The agency updated its guidance in 2019 to outlaw the use of ozone gas to treat “any medical condition for which there is no proof of safety and effectiveness”.

Only two medical devices containing or producing ozone are approved by the Therapeutic Goods Administration for legal sale in Australia.

One is a commercial-grade cleaning product and the other is an ozone-generating device used in dentistry as a disinfectant and treatment for tooth decay.

Another Sydney ozone practitioner, Linh Tuan Phan, was stung with an interim order last month preventing him from providing any health services, “including ozone therapy or any procedures involving skin penetration”, until the end of August.

Here is the link:

https://www.smh.com.au/national/nsw/the-sydney-clinic-barred-from-treating-patients-20240802-p5jyw3.html

There really are too many crooks out there that are so ready to seek to exploit the ignorant, vulnerable or desperate!

I hope they lose a lot of money with all this nonsense and that the TGA makes sure no one uses their useless services!

It would be funny if there were not innocent and probably desperate innocents being exploited.

David.

This Is Surely Just The Usual Way The “Hype-Cycle” Plays Out.

This appeared a day or so ago.

Is the AI bubble about to burst?

By David Swan

August 3, 2024 — 5.00am

The artificial intelligence sector is on a precipice. Already shaping as the defining technology of at least the last 20 years, generative AI and its frothy company valuations are now either booming or are a bubble about to burst, depending on who you ask.

The arms race kicked off in earnest in November 2022 when OpenAI released ChatGPT, leading to a scramble in Silicon Valley – and Australia – to engineer AI products and put them into users’ hands. Tech giants and investors alike have splashed billions of dollars into AI software companies and their suppliers, such as chipmaker Nvidia.

Canva this week acquired Australia’s most-hyped AI start-up, Leonardo.ai, for a reported $320 million. Leonardo AI offers a free tool for creating AI-generated art, and has produced more than a billion images over the past 18 months.

Yet until this week, Australia was by all accounts getting left behind. The nation was shaping as a relative minnow, eclipsed by the likes of the US and China, which have moved full steam ahead in developing large language models and deploying them to the masses.

One deal has likely altered Australia’s trajectory in one fell swoop, however.

Canva this week acquired Australia’s most-hyped AI start-up, Leonardo.ai, for a reported $320 million. Leonardo AI offers a free tool for creating AI-generated art, and has produced more than a billion images over the past 18 months.

Viewed bullishly, the tie-up finally makes Australia relevant on the world stage when it comes to AI, and positions a combined Canva-Leonardo.ai as a likely AI powerhouse that could eventually rival the likes of Nvidia and even ChatGPT maker OpenAI in terms of relevance, and valuation. Canva is currently worth some $40 billion – a valuation rivalling that of Telstra and Qantas – and employs thousands of Australians, most of whom are in Sydney. It’s continuing to grow at a rapid clip even amid a tepid broader economy.

Nearly 200 million people globally use Canva’s software every month to create designs, and adding Leonardo.ai’s customer-base of 19 million people to that mix should instantly create a globally significant AI software maker.

The acquisition will help Canva remain on par with AI heavyweights Microsoft and Adobe, according to eToro market analyst Josh Gilbert.

“Every developer is scrambling right now to integrate AI into their products and Canva is one company that arguably needs the biggest boost here to stay ahead of Adobe and Microsoft’s monumental AI push,” Gilbert said.

“The response to Canva’s AI text generator ‘Magic Write’ seems underwhelming, so acquiring an established, dedicated generative AI platform makes more sense than developing one from scratch. It really all depends on how innovative Canva’s integration of Leonardo’s image generation capabilities winds up being.”

Former Boston Consulting Group strategist Barb Hyman leads one of Australia’s other most successful AI start-ups, Sapia.ai, which has raised $17 million from Woolworths and Macquarie and whose software is dubbed an “AI career coach in your back pocket”.

“I love the story of one amazing Australian tech company buying another one, there’s a beautiful symmetry in that. I’m delighted for them,” she said.

For Hyman, Australian AI companies shouldn’t even try to directly compete with the likes of Google, which employs thousands of workers who have PhDs in artificial intelligence.

“There is a different way to be competitive ... that’s when you have a data set that is unique. We have a proprietary data set that took us two years to build initially,” she said.

“The ones with the unique data are the ones who are going to see the exponential value, rather than just trying to compete with Google or Meta using all the same open-source data that everyone else has.”

For the local economy and investors, there’s now much riding on the success of Canva and Sapia.ai, as well as the degree to which other businesses can adopt AI technologies.

Australia’s productivity has been flat for the past decade and AI adoption will be crucial to the growth of Australia’s healthcare and education industries in particular, according to Dr Stephen King, who serves on Australia’s Productivity Commission.

“AI could be the way that the developed world gets out of its current productivity malaise,” King said.

“AI is the first general purpose technology likely to radically improve productivity in service-dominated areas.

“Australia doesn’t do a lot of inventing of new technology. Ninety-eight per cent of our business productivity improvement comes from the adoption, not creating the new stuff. So the big advancements that AI will make to Australian productivity will occur through its adoption.”

Kim Oosthuizen, head of artificial intelligence for software giant SAP, agreed and said that it’s important for businesses to keep humans in the loop when it comes to AI usage, to reduce error rates and “hallucinations”, the term used to describe incorrect or misleading results generated by AI models.

“Most people think that AI is just ChatGPT. But in a business context, people don’t realise that these tools are here today, we’re just not aware necessarily that they’re AI,” she said. “And I don’t think most people know or care which technology sits in the back end, or which vendor is responsible for it, it’s more about, is it really useful?”

That question over usefulness is critical for US investors who are weighing AI’s potential, and are preparing for the first interest rate cuts since 2020. Shares in Apple, Microsoft, Google parent company Alphabet and Nvidia have all taken a hit over the past week, leading some to question whether the AI hype train is over.

Stocks in Nvidia have been particularly volatile, falling more than 25 per cent from their June peaks of over $US140 ($215) a share before on Thursday bouncing back to record the biggest daily jump in market value in Wall Street history. The company dominates the market for the chips underpinning generative AI programs, and is widely seen as a proxy for the heady opportunities – and what others perceive as excessive hype – in the sector. Nvidia commands roughly 80 per cent of the AI chip market.

Meanwhile, infrastructure costs are skyrocketing across the board. The AI sector has similar traits to the cryptocurrency sector, in that it relies on heavy computing power for its calculations.

In announcing Meta’s quarterly earnings this week, chief executive Mark Zuckerberg said the computing resources required to train its large language model, Llama 4, would likely be almost 10-times as much as Meta used to train Llama 3. Future models will grow beyond that, he said.

“Meta AI is on track to be the most used AI assistant in the world by the end of the year,” Zuckerberg told investors and analysts on a conference call.

“At this point, I’d rather risk building capacity before it is needed rather than too late given the long lead times for spinning up new inference projects.”

Meta is spending billions in a bid for AI dominance. To meet its AI needs, the company would buy 350,000 Nvidia H100 graphics cards by the end of 2024, he said.

Google parent company Alphabet meanwhile last week reported that capital expenditure was $US13.2 billion in the second quarter, up 91.4 per cent from a year ago. Microsoft this week reported capital expenditure of $US19 billion for the quarter, up nearly 77.6 per cent from $US10.7 billion a year prior.

Not everyone is convinced the price tag will be worth it.

Goldman Sachs’ top stock analyst, Jim Covello, believes most generative AI technology is not ready for prime time. He said tech giants and others were set to spend more than $US1 trillion on AI capex in coming years, with so far little to show for it.

“Despite its expensive price tag, the technology is nowhere near where it needs to be in order to be useful,” Covello said in a recent AI report.

“Overbuilding things the world doesn’t have use for, or is not ready for, typically ends badly.”

For Covello, most technological transformations in history have replaced very expensive solutions with very cheap solutions. He said that replacing jobs with extremely expensive technology was basically the opposite of how things should be done.

“We estimate that the Al infrastructure build-out will cost over $US1 trillion in the next several years alone, which includes spending on data centres, utilities, and applications,” Covello said.

“So, the crucial question is: what $US1 trillion problem will Al solve? Replacing low-wage jobs with tremendously costly technology is basically the polar opposite of the prior technology transitions I’ve witnessed in my 30 years of closely following the tech industry.”

Some analysts see the lofty valuations as justified, however. Rhys Davis, InvestorHub chief and co-founder, said the average value multiplier for AI companies sat at around 25-times, in comparison to the estimated 40-times of Canva and mining companies trading at 70-times.

“To say AI is ‘overhyped’ ignores the fact that tech and non-tech businesses are exceeding those valuations,” he said.

“AI’s transformative nature cannot be understated. It’s a driving force that’s enabling companies to scale and operate at an unprecedented efficiency level, previously thought unimaginable. Of course, what’s crucially important is the proprietary and defensible nature of the technology ‘under the hood’.”

For Covello, the AI bubble could take a long time to burst. In the meantime, it’s AI infrastructure providers who will likely continue to benefit.

“While the question of whether AI technology will ever deliver on the promise many people are excited about today is certainly debatable,” he said.

“The less debatable point is that AI technology is exceptionally expensive, and to justify those costs, the technology must be able to solve complex problems, which it isn’t designed to do.”

Here is the link:

https://www.smh.com.au/technology/is-the-ai-bubble-about-to-burst-20240731-p5jxxa.html

I really do find this a fascinating article but have to confess I have absolutely no idea where it is all going to land and how long it will be until we see real and sustainable profits being booked by these companies. Given the rate of “cash-burn” they all incur it surely won’t be long until we see the “wheat sorted from the chaff”

I give it about six months before we are all pretty clear just who the winners and losers are. It really does, however, have the feeling of a classic hype-cycle and I am confident we will all see who the winners are soon!

How long do you think it will take?

David.

AusHealthIT Poll Number 758 – Results – 04 August 2024.

Here are the results of the poll.

Does Australia Need To Rethink Its Pharmaceutical Supply Chains And Regulations To Ensure We Do Not Face Shortages Of Basic Medical Agents And Supplies?

Yes                                                                                19 (63%)

No                                                                                 11 (37%)

I Have No Idea                                                              0 (0%)

Total No. Of Votes: 30

A pretty clear cut vote suggesting a touch more work on the pharmaceutical supply chains may not go amiss!

Any insights on the poll are welcome, as a comment, as usual!

A fair voting turnout. 

0 of 30 who answered the poll admitted to not being sure about the answer to the question!

Again, many, many thanks to all those who voted! 

David.

This Seems Like It May Be Some Pretty Exciting Stuff, To Say The Least!

This appeared a few days ago….

Nasa rover discovery hints at ancient microbial life on Mars

A 3ft by 2ft rock marked with off-white spots may offer fossilised record of microbes dating back billions of years

Ian Sample Science editor

Fri 26 Jul 2024 22.23 AEST Last modified on Sat 27 Jul 2024 04.22 AEST

A spotty, vein-filled rock found by a Nasa rover on Mars contains features that suggest it may have hosted microbial life billions of years ago.

The arrowhead-shaped rock, named Cheyava Falls, was discovered by Nasa’s Perseverance rover on 21 July as it trundled along the northern edge of Neretva Vallis, an ancient river valley carved by water flowing into the red planet’s Jezero crater.

Analysis of the 3ft by 2ft rock revealed signs of organic material, intriguing surface spots similar to those associated with fossilised microbes on Earth and evidence that water once passed through the rock, the agency said.

Ken Farley, the project scientist on the mission at the California Institute of Technology, said Cheyava Falls was “the most puzzling, complex and potentially important rock yet investigated by Perseverance”, though the team make clear that non-biological processes may have given rise to the features.

“On the one hand, we have our first compelling detection of organic material, distinctive colourful spots indicative of chemical reactions that microbial life could use as an energy source, and clear evidence that water, necessary for life, once passed through the rock,” Farley said.

“On the other hand, we have been unable to determine exactly how the rock formed and to what extent nearby rocks may have heated Cheyava Falls and contributed to these features.”

In the ancient past, Mars was a warmer, wetter planet. If life ever evolved there, researchers believe traces should remain within its rocks, in the form of organic material and potentially fossilised remnants.

Scans of the Cheyava Falls rock by Perseverance’s Sherloc instrument suggest it contains organic compounds. Such carbon-based molecules are regarded as the building blocks of life, but can also be produced by non-biological processes.

Large white veins of calcium phosphate run along the rock. Between them are bands of reddish material, likely haematite, one of the iron oxide compounds that gives Mars its rusty colour. Closer inspection of the bands revealed dozens of little leopard spot-like features. Each of the off-white spots is surrounded by a black ring containing iron and phosphate.

David Flannery, an astrobiologist at Queensland University of Technology in Australia and a member of the mission, called the spots “a big surprise”, because on Earth similar features “are often associated with the fossilised record of microbes”.

White spots can form on rocks through chemical reactions involving haematite, producing iron and phosphate, as well as energy that microbes could live on. While the features are intriguing, nothing seen yet appears to be an actual fossilised microbe.

Researchers are desperate to get their hands on samples for more thorough investigation, but Nasa’s plans to return the Mars rocks to Earth have run into difficulties.

The agency’s Mars sample return mission is over budget at $11bn (£8.5bn) and badly delayed with no prospect of bringing rocks back before 2040. Nasa is looking for companies to return Mars samples sooner and at lower cost.

“This is what Mars Sample Return is all about. We have never seen anything like this from Mars before, not in our Martian meteorite collections, not with Mars Science Laboratory or other landers,” said Prof John Bridges, a participating scientist on Nasa’s Mars Science Laboratory mission at the University of Leicester.

“The reality is we need to get these samples back on Earth to do the detailed electron microscopy and isotope analyses to check if these formed with ancient microbial action or abiotically,” Bridges said.

Prof Charles Cockell, an astrobiologist at the University of Edinburgh, said: “Although these features don’t provide unambiguous evidence of life, they do confirm that Mars was a very dynamic planet with all the ingredients for life, including organic carbon.

“We need to bring back samples, or in my view, even better, send humans, to find if we are seeing the signatures of life.”

Prof Monica Grady, a planetary and space scientist at The Open University, said: “This is a really amazing-looking rock. It makes my mouth water just to look at it. The combination of different types of minerals arranged the way they are reminds me of some of the textures found in ancient terrestrial rocks, where tracks of burrowing worms are preserved. Obviously, I’m not saying that there were burrowing worms on Mars – but I can’t wait to see what else Perseverance uncovers in this part of its exploration.”

Here is the link:

https://www.theguardian.com/science/article/2024/jul/26/nasa-rover-discovery-hints-at-ancient-microbial-life-on-mars

The tone of this article seems to suggest I may not be around to see some samples actually returned. It also seems that, while the odd microbe may be found, real ‘Martians’ are pretty much not happening!

Oh well I will just have to stick to Star Trek Star Wars and Babylon 5 for now! Have any of you noticed it seems to be years since we have had any decent new SF in this genre? Time for some new stuff I reckon!

David.

It Will Be A While Before We Know If SearchGPT Is A Serious Google Competitor.

This appeared last week:

Look out Google, here comes SearchGPT

Gerrit De Vynck

Jul 26, 2024 – 9.25am

ChatGPT maker OpenAI has revealed a new web search product that will directly challenge search giant Google and lay out its vision for how chatbots may change the way people interact with the broader web.

The free tool, called SearchGPT, consists of a search box similar to that of a traditional search engine. Users can ask follow-up questions in a conversational tone to get more specific answers. SearchGPT will initially be available to a small group of users and publishers before eventually being integrated into ChatGPT, OpenAI said in a blog post.

Since ChatGPT’s launch in November 2022, tech analysts have suggested that chatbots could upend the way people surf the web. The bots are trained on huge amounts of information scraped from the internet, which they can draw on to answer questions. But the technology also constantly makes up information, making the tools unreliable in terms of accuracy.

AI companies have tried to fix the problem by plugging their chatbots into search engines. ChatGPT already searches Bing, Microsoft’s search engine, to find up-to-date information for some queries.

Perplexity AI, an AI search start-up, uses AI to search the web, read articles and provide summaries that it aims to make more direct and conversational in comparison to regular Google search results.

OpenAI’s push into search comes after Google in May jumped heavily into using generative AI in search. After ChatGPT’s launch, the company began testing its own AI search features, and in May it put AI answers at the top of search results for most people in the United States.

The results have been mixed, with some of the search answers being nonsensical or just plain incorrect, such as Google’s bot telling people to put glue on pizza. A spokesperson for Google did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Search partnerships

It’s unclear whether the new OpenAI tool also works with Bing. Microsoft uses OpenAI’s technology as part of a licensing agreement. A spokesperson for OpenAI said its search tool draws on information from “third-party partners and direct feeds”.

Publishers, from newspapers to one-person bloggers, have raised concerns that the move to AI answers over search results could undermine or even destroy their businesses. Web publishers rely on traffic from Google to stay afloat and make money, and they have had a long and uneasy relationship with the search giant, which often disrupts web publishers with tweaks and changes to the way search results work.

OpenAI has tried to position itself as more of an ally to publishers by signing deals with news organisations such as News Corp, the Atlantic, the Associated Press and Politico’s parent company, Axel Springer.

The new search tool gives the source of the information and links back to it, according to images provided in OpenAI’s blog post. The announcement featured positive quotes from the chief executives of News Corp and the Atlantic.

News organisations have also begun developing their own AI-driven tools to keep up with tech companies. The Washington Post launched a “Climate Answers” bot in July that uses generative AI to answer readers’ questions about climate change, based on information from Washington Post stories.

Individual news workers, including at some companies that have signed deals with OpenAI, are more sceptical. Some journalists have said they are worried that AI trained on their work will eventually be used to replace them.

The union representing workers at the Atlantic said in May that it was “deeply troubled” with the company’s deal with OpenAI.

OpenAI also said it would be “improving the experience” in areas such as commerce, signalling that the tool could have advertisements, another direct challenge to Google’s dominant business model of showing ads on search results.

Washington Post

Here is the link:

https://www.afr.com/technology/openai-reveals-searchgpt-the-ai-web-search-bot-to-challenge-google-20240726-p5jwru

This has to be very good news with some innovation and competition coming to the search space. It will be fun to see how the space evolves and how much more useful it can become!

Fasten the seatbelts – this will be a battle royale!

David.

I Think The Medical Profession Needs To Work Much Harder On This!

This appeared last week:

More Australians die while waiting for an organ donor

By Mary Ward

July 28, 2024 — 5.00am

In 2016, the Burrows family were living in San Diego while dad Anthony served with the Australian navy. In the middle of his three-year stint, Anthony and wife Clare welcomed a baby girl, Kate.

In her first weeks of life, Kate’s skin started to turn yellow. The family suspected jaundice, but a blood test revealed she had a condition called biliary atresia – her body could not process bile.

Kate was fortunate to be matched with an altruistic donor, who would provide a portion of their liver for her tiny body. But after a number of weeks, it became apparent the nine-month-old wasn’t responding well to the piece of liver she’d received. She remained in hospital with ongoing complications, as the family’s time in the US came to an end.

“They always tell you there’s a percentage of transplants that fail, but you never think you will be in that percentage,” Clare said. “We got Kate to a point where she was stable enough to be on a plane, and then we left.”

The Burrows arrived back in Sydney on a Friday. The following Monday, they received a call from the Children’s Hospital at Westmead: a local donor had been found for Kate.

On March 1, 2017, the then 15-month-old received her new transplant.

Organ donations dropping

The organisation which manages organ donation in Australia, DonateLife, is concerned about a decline in donor numbers, with those registering to donate falling by 13 per cent in NSW and 15 per cent in Victoria in 2023. In some parts of south-west Sydney, fewer than one in five adults are registered organ donors, while in Melbourne’s Brimbank and Greater Dandenong councils, the rate is one in 10.

More than 50 Australians died while on the organ transplant waitlist last year. Twenty-two died while on the liver transplant waitlist alone, compared to five in 2022. There are about 1800 Australians on the waitlist.

NSW state medical director at DonateLife Dr Michael O’Leary said organ donation sign-ups had remained pretty static for years until last year’s fall, with an actual bump in 2021 when more people downloaded the Medicare app to receive their COVID-19 vaccination certificate.

“It was actually just quite lucky that to get onto the Medicare app and get your certificate, the button was really close to the one for signing up to be an organ donor,” he said.

O’Leary said multiple factors affect how many make it off the waitlist in any given year. “We are nowhere near being able to provide organs as required for transplantation in Australia,” he said. “Anyone on the waitlist is on there because the specialists in organ failure felt these patients were warranted for transplantation.”

Kate proud of her scars

Now aged nine, Kate is a happy and healthy year 4 student, who recently gave a speech about organ donation to her classmates.

“She’s quite proud of her scars. She takes medication day and night for anti-rejection, but if you met her you wouldn’t know,” said her mother Clare. “She’s met every single milestone since she had the transplant.”

In the months after their daughter’s life-saving gift, the Burrows reached out to her donor’s family, but didn’t hear back.

In September last year, they did. Kate’s donor was a young woman who loved to dance, and wanted to be a paramedic when she grew up. The Burrows wrote back, telling them that Kate, too, loved dancing, as well as playing soccer and taking part in Nippers.

“Kate wrote that letter, and she was so grateful to be able to share what she has done in the years since,” said Clare. “We encourage her to see her donation as a very special gift.”

Here is the link:

https://www.smh.com.au/healthcare/more-australians-die-while-waiting-for-an-organ-donor-20240719-p5jv1f.html

In another life, a very long time ago, I found myself doing the almost unimaginable. In the office outside the ICU I was trying to console a family of a recently severely head-injured teenager who I knew had but a few days to exist while at the same time I was seeking consent to remove many of his organs, which would transform the lives of five of six people with new and long lasting organs.

This was, at once, the hardest, most rewarding and saddest role I ever had to undertake. It is an awful job but at the same time very hopeful and rewarding – especially when the recipients dropped in to say hello – and you could see the life-changing outcome you had helped in!

There needs to be much better education on all this and better explanations of the care that is taken to ensure the best outcome for all.

Australia is not doing anywhere near well enough in ensuring that organs from the clinically dead – and you are really dead if you brain has irreversibly and totally ceased to function -  are properly used and deployed to do the most good! (A decent ongoing national education program is needed)

Having seen the recipients years later I know it is a truly good thing! The dead can really help the living continue a rich life and we need to work harder at it!

David.

Terrifyingly We Have Places That Are Almost As Hot As Nevada And Not That Far From CBDs.

This appeared last week:

Extreme heat

Life at 115F: a sweltering summer pushes Las Vegas to the brink

Record heat is killing hundreds in Clark county. But one of America’s fastest-growing metro areas just keeps getting bigger

Gabrielle Canon in Las Vegas

Thu 25 Jul 2024 21.00 AEST Last modified on Fri 26 Jul 2024 02.31 AEST

Hot air wafted through the heavy, gold-lined doors of a Las Vegas casino as they opened, offering a reminder of a disaster quietly unfolding outside. Even though the sun had just set on an evening in mid-July, temperatures were yet to dip below 100F (37C).

Spawned from a paved-over oasis in the Mojave, this desert metropolis has always been hot. But a string of brutal heatwaves this summer has pushed Sin City to a deadly simmer.

It’s hard to tell from inside the cool, cavernous buildings that line the Las Vegas Strip, which have become unwitting refuges from the summer elements. Tourists willing to enter labyrinths of slot machines and blaring pop music, shops and shows can spend hours lost in an alternate world, away from the sun.

For the 2.3 million people who call this valley home, the dangerous elements are harder to ignore. When temperatures climb, shadeless streets are hot enough to cause second-degree burns in seconds.

This June was the city’s hottest on record. In July, things got even worse: the city experienced a record seven days at 115F or higher and set a new all-time high of 120F.

The heat is just a signal of what’s to come. Temperatures in Las Vegas are rising faster than almost anywhere else in the US.

Meanwhile, Clark county, where Las Vegas is located, is bursting at the seams. The region is among the fastest-growing metro areas in the US. Roughly 2 million people have moved here over the last 50 years, with nearly a million more expected by 2060.

I have been living here since 1972 and it would get hot – but not this kind of hot

Louis Lacey, Help of Southern Nevada

To accommodate them, the county has thrown its support behind a federal bill that would open up 25,000 acres of the surrounding desert for housing and commercial development. The county also has plans for a new airport, slated for completion in 2037, that would pave over thousands more acres of arid landscape near the California border.

New shopping centers and cul de sacs all mean more concrete – and more heat – in an area where the ability to afford or access air conditioning can already mean the difference between life and death.

Even after she spent most of the day inside, the heat still shocked Inata, a woman who traveled with her friends Chastity and Belinda from Massachusetts to vacation in the city last week. “It was horrendous,” she said. “In Massachusetts, if there was weather like this, there would be ambulances around.”

The three women said they struggled to cool down at the pool because the warm water offered little relief and the surrounding pavement burned their feet. “I don’t know how Las Vegas people do it but kudos to them,” she added. “I couldn’t do this every day.”

A daily battle for survival

The record heat is pushing residents to their limits – and has perhaps been most sinister for the more than 5,000 people in the county estimated to be experiencing homelessness.

Some have opted to seek refuge in underground tunnels during the summer, risking the waters that surge through them during summer monsoons over exposure to the brutal heat.

“We are trying to live – and it’s difficult,” said Tyson Williams, who has spent the last year living in his tent on the east side of town.

Williams paused to wipe the sweat rolling down his face as he filled a rolling cooler with water bottles provided to him by an outreach team, before downing an entire bottle in a single chug. A dilapidated umbrella he positioned over his tent did little to provide relief.

Born and raised in Las Vegas, he is a brick mason by trade, but now he panhandles for money to buy ice. He has just landed a job waving a sign outside a smoke shop, which will keep him outside and exposed to the elements. “We are all just one check away from being homeless,” he said.

Louis Lacey spends most of his summer days trying to save the lives of people like Williams, as the director of Help of Southern Nevada, a non-profit organization that hands out water, hygiene kits, and hope as part of a larger mission to get more people into permanent housing.

“I have been living here since 1972 and it would get hot – but not this kind of hot,” Lacey said last week as he drove through the city scanning sidewalks and drainages for anyone in need of aid.

As someone who has experienced homelessness himself, he said, the work is a calling. It’s also laced with heartbreak.

There was the woman whose leg was amputated after she got third-degree burns from passing out on the scalding hot sidewalk. She now uses a wheelchair. Just last week, he and other aid workers rushed to revive another woman, age 81, who passed out in an encampment. They found her surrounded by her pet dogs, who had all died in the heat. He was relieved they were able to save her. That’s not always how the story ends.

July is typically when local health officials report the highest number of heat-related deaths. Between 2022 and 2023 there was an 80% increase in fatalities, with the official number around 300, nearly double those counted in 2020.

The actual toll is believed to be far higher. Dozens of unhoused people died in the heat last year, and many of them, Lacey said, weren’t included in official fatality counts. He knows of at least 62 people and that doesn’t include others who got swept away by water in the tunnels.

This year the heat was worse – and while the numbers haven’t been released yet, many fear this July, too, will be brutal.

Emergencies on the rise as development rolls ahead

With impacts only expected to intensify in the coming years, the city and county are working to implement strategies to keep people safe.

There are 39 cooling stations across Clark county, but almost all are operated by unpaid volunteering organizations and typically close in the late afternoons. Only one city-run shelter is open during nights, weekends and holidays.

Jace Radke, a spokesperson for the city of Las Vegas, acknowledged by email that there were challenges with heat safety but cited wide-scale reliance on air conditioning as a protective measure.

He also said the city planned to plant 60,000 trees by 2050, part of a program that has already planted 3,000 since 2020. The county has also laid out ambitious sustainability plans focused on expanding affordable housing, reducing emissions, and addressing the worsening effects of the climate crisis such as drought, heat and water shortages.

But there’s still a long way to go and lawmakers have lagged on implementing important mitigations, including heat protections for workers. Emergencies, meanwhile, have continued to surge in frequency.

Jordan Moore, a spokesperson for Las Vegas Fire & Rescue, said there has been a “significant increase in heat-related emergencies” in the past month. Meanwhile in Henderson, a Clark county city south-east of Las Vegas, heat-related emergencies are up 53%, according to the deputy fire chief Scott Vivier.

Delivery drivers, warehouse operators, our construction trades – basically anyone who has to work outside – we have seen emergencies from them

Scott Vivier, Las Vegas Fire & Rescue

Populations including elderly people, unhoused people, those with underlying health conditions, and children are among the most at-risk. But this year the department is also getting numerous calls from people on the job.

“Delivery drivers, warehouse operators, our construction trades – basically anyone who has to work outside – we have seen emergencies from them and people with regular medical emergencies and during a normal day the heat causes them to succumb,” Vivier said. Heat-related complaints filed with the Nevada occupational safety and health administration (Osha) jumped 172% last July compared with a year earlier.

Vivier’s department is among the first in the region to use a new tool called the polar pod, which enables emergency responders to pack someone in ice and water while they transport them to the hospital. They have even trained to use the pods to revive overheated pets, Vivier added.

But Vivier is still worried about what the future will bring. “Heat is the No 1 weather-related cause of death for people around the world,” he said. “It’s a major, major issue we should all be concerned about.”

Even with the rising toll, the county’s hopes to grow deeper into the desert haven’t slowed.

Far from the din of the city and the suburbs, the hum of churning traffic fades into the background, replaced by soft breeze and silence. If the plan is enacted, these desert hillsides dotted in yucca trees and creosote could soon be covered in homes and strip malls.

Questions remain about whether building out the desert floor, proposed as a fix for the housing crisis in Clark county, will only perpetuate the dangers already alive in the city and suburbs.

“The desert is not a place for people who are living on the margins to begin with,” said Kyle Roerink, the executive director of the Great Basin Water Nework, an environmental advocacy organization. Roerink and others are also concerned about Joshua trees and wild desert tortoises, along with a host of other plants and animals, who would be sacrificed to satisfy continued sprawl.

“We are raised to believe that what is behind us right now is just normal and is doable, and fine, and that everything will be OK,” he said, waving toward the scorching cityscape where the history of rapid expansion in Las Vegas is already on full display. When many of those homes were built, water was much more freely available and the summers were far less lethal. “But these are radically transformed landscapes – and that comes with consequences.”

Back in east Las Vegas, Louis Lacey is wrapping up an afternoon of administering aid. The housing crisis and those impacted by it are all that is keeping him here. He dreams of the small town he will move to when he is finally ready to hang up his hat.

“I have been living in this hell for so long and I feel like this is my mission … But when I am done I want to move to a town where it rains and has four seasons. I don’t want to be in this,” he said, gesturing to the gridlocked traffic.

That doesn’t mean he’ll stop worrying about the city’s future and where the 800 people his organization helped get shelter will wind up. “When I moved here, there were 200,000 people – now there are almost 3 million,” he said.

“The only question I have is: is the growth sustainable?” Lacey sighed deeply, his expression pained. “We have the land,” he said, “but do we have the resources?”

Here is the link:

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/article/2024/jul/25/las-vegas-extreme-heat

This is a truly dystopian vision of what climate change is going to bring to the west of Sydeny and Melbourne in 20 to 30 years. I wonder will  the population of Western Sydney be ready for it – I fear not!

This is another of those blogs where I think mortality may save me as I am not anticipating seeing my 105^th birthday!

While no one says it much it is clear that Climate Change is chasing us and not too many years from now will catch us! Having grown up in Cowra (Western NSW) in the 1960’s when 100’s were usual in summer and air conditioning had yet to be invented (It was awful!) I suspect Sydney has seen nothing yet. It will be interesting to see how we all cope over the next 20 years of so!

David.