Illawarra Women's Trauma Recovery Centre improvement notices
ABC Illawarra: An article published on 11 October 2024 about the Illawarra Women's Trauma Recovery Centre required further clarification on some of the improvement notices issued by SafeWork NSW. The story has been updated to more clearly reflect the findings from the SafeWork improvement notices. The story was also updated to clarify the time frame in which staff left the centre.
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ABC News
22 minutes ago
- ABC News
WA family shocked as healthy 13-year-old diagnosed with cancer of the thymus
Almost six weeks ago Kobi Jones's life was turned upside down when he was diagnosed with an extremely rare type of cancer almost unheard of in people his age. It was an ordinary day at football training when the 13-year-old from Collie, Western Australia, felt early signs of the thymoma — a tumour that develops on the thymus gland. Kobi's mother Charli Rowden said that was the start of a life-changing and terrifying journey. "The coach was concerned because the chest pain came on so randomly — he didn't get any hits or anything like that," she said. Initial check-ups failed to find anything unusual but a couple of days later doctors contacted the family about a mass visible on Kobi's X-ray. He was taken to the hospital in Bunbury for additional tests. "I just kept telling Kobi, 'Oh it will be nothing, mate — we have to check what it is and make sure everything is OK," Ms Rowden said. "And then to be told, while I was standing up, that it could be a cancerous tumour on his thymus — it was horrible. "[It's] very scary … he was such a fit, healthy kid. "The scariest part is that they don't really know [much about it] or where it could go … they have actually gone and contacted doctors in other countries that may have seen this, all over the world." Thymomas impact less than 1 per cent of cancer patients each year and are typically detected in people between the ages of 40 and 60. Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre oncologist Tom John said it was a "very, very uncommon" condition that affected the organ responsible for training the immune system. "Most medical oncologists wouldn't see a thymoma in their lifetime … and it's very uncommon in young people," he said. "[It] sits very close to the heart and some of the big vessels in your chest, and that can certainly cause some symptoms like pain and shortness of breath that [it's important] you don't ignore." Dr John said he had seen a lot of "success stories" over the years when it came to treating the condition. "If you do find a cancer like this early, it's usually curable," he said. "We've had many patients who are cured just with surgery or in some cases we've given chemotherapy up front followed by surgery, and in some cases we have given radiation combined with chemotherapy and they have been cured. "If they're detected early and can be cut out, they're curable — we've certainly had quite a few success stories with thymoma. Kobi is recovering in hospital after a long but successful surgery this week to remove the mass. He has several months of recovery ahead but stepfather Tayler Leadbitter said he was feeling positive and keen to get back home. "It's been bloody horrible," Mr Leadbitter said. "We do a lot of hunting, fishing, four-wheel driving – anything to do with the bush and outdoors – to now the complete opposite, stuck in Perth. "There's not a lot of people to talk to — it's quite isolated and quite hard." Mr Leadbitter said he was already planning a family trip for when Kobi was healthy again.
ABC News
37 minutes ago
- ABC News
Meagan White chose surrogacy in order to become a mother, and now has two children
Maree Arnold has an extra special connection with her three-year-old grandson Winston and his newborn sister Phoebe. Ms Arnold carried and birthed both Winston and Phoebe — or Princess Phoebe as Winston calls her — as a surrogate for her daughter Meagan White and her husband Clayde. "You want to trust the surrogate that's carrying your baby with everything and who do you trust more?" Ms White said, while smiling at her mother. Ms White has a rare condition called Mayer-Rokitansky-Küster-Hauser (MRKH) syndrome, which has prevented her from carrying her own children. "I was born without my uterus," Ms White said. "So [surrogacy] has pretty much been my only option." While Ms White has ovaries and produces eggs, she does not have the uterus to carry a baby. She and her husband, from Lilydale in northern Tasmania, started creating embryos through TasIVF in 2017. They also travelled to Canada where they created more embryos and pursued surrogacy. "We got to 23 weeks and the baby's kidneys didn't develop," Ms White said. When the Whites returned home, they looked into uterus transplants — which at the time was in the very early trial stage in Australia. "We were going to look into uterus transplants, as in mum transplanting her uterus to me," Ms White said. The mother and daughter flew to Queensland to investigate the transplant option. "They said that the operation would be simple for me but reasonably extensive for mum to make sure they removed the uterus with all the vessels intact, and that's when mum said, 'it might be easier if I carried'." Ms White and her husband, along with Ms Arnold and her husband Leigh, had to go through the altruistic surrogacy agreement process of counselling, contracts and IVF. Then on January 13, 2022, Ms Arnold birthed Meagan and Clayde's son Winston. After getting settled as a family of three, Ms White began to look again into uterus transplants in the hope of growing her family again. Then surrogate gran stepped back in. Ms Arnold, who has also had five of her own children, said the pregnancy process was different — not only a surrogate, but as a grandmother. "I'm a lot more careful," she said. "And the technology — the scans are different and all the apps that you get — it's different. "It's amazing that we could help and carry and make a family. "I think it's more common for an auntie or uncle to carry their nephew or their niece because it's that generation younger, but not grandparents so much." There weren't many surrogate options for Ms White, especially given Tasmania's surrogacy laws. In Tasmania, intended parents and their surrogate need to live on the island state at the time the surrogacy agreement is entered into. Anna McKie, from Surrogacy Australia, described the law as "archaic" and a "form of discrimination" against intended parents in Tasmania. "For a state that's already a bit more isolated, to have that as an extra, is just ridiculous," Ms McKie said. "You're the only state that says intended parents must have a surrogate in the same state. Whereas if you're a surrogate in Tasmania, you can carry for anyone, anywhere in Australia." Tasmania's Births, Deaths and Marriages registry has registered six parentage orders due to surrogacy in the past five years. Ms McKie said she believed the state restriction was from decades ago when IVF laws were first set up and the government wanted surrogates and intended parents to be close "for the best interests of the child". Both Ms White and Ms Arnold agreed the law was "unfair" and that it made surrogacy options harder for Tasmanian parents. A state government spokesperson said the government would continue to work with stakeholders to determine if changes were required. Surrogacy Australia is also one of three fertility groups calling for changes to Medicare rebate restrictions. As the law currently stands, Australians using assisted reproductive technology for surrogacy are excluded from Medicare rebates — even if, like in Ms White's case, it is the only way to have children. TasIVF medical director Dr Manuela Toledo said it meant those going through surrogacy had to pay thousands more for IVF services than those not using a surrogate. "Someone who's using IVF with a Medicare rebate would be paying a third the cost of someone who's going through surrogacy and having to pay for everything," Dr Toledo said. Dr Toledo said the IVF Group and the Fertility Society of Australia and NewZealand, which she is a board member of, were calling for the Medicare rebate exclusion to be changed. "Any Australian person with a Medicare card should be able to access fertility treatment based on their needs, not on their indication of medical treatment," Dr Toledo said. "We're not producing enough offspring to sustain our growing population and it's self evident that we need to help individuals and couples have families if that's what they'd like to do." Ms White said Medicare rebates were supposed to be there "to help those that medically need the help". "It would be fair to have it changed." A Senate committee that recently enquired into universal access to reproductive healthcare, recommended the Australian government implement the recommendations of the Medicare Benefits Schedule Review to remove the exclusion of IVF services for altruistic surrogacy purposes. The Australian government supported the recommendation in principle in February. A federal government spokesperson said the regulation of IVF was on the agenda for the next health ministers' meeting, to be held on Thursday.
News.com.au
2 hours ago
- News.com.au
New SA food and drink policies to tackle obesity
A new approach to tackling childhood obesity in South Australia is being applauded by one of the key policy-shapers at the state's independent health and medical research institute. Professor Caroline Miller, the director of SAHMRI's Health Policy Centre, says the state government's move to ban the advertising of unhealthy food and drink products on government-owned public transport is a 'step in the right direction' to help curb diet-related health issues. The Restriction of Unhealthy Food and Drink Advertising on SA Government Transit Assets policy, set to come into effect from July 1, prohibits a range of junk food items from being displayed on Adelaide's buses, trains and trams. Chocolate, lollies, desserts, ice creams, soft drinks and chips will all be among the products banned from display, with the measure designed to limit children's exposure to unhealthy food and drink advertising. According to the National Health Survey 2021-22, almost 66 per cent of Australian adults and 28 per cent of children are considered to be overweight or obese. Professor Miller says there is immense pressure on health systems 'struggling to manage demand from burdens of chronic diseases' – making the advertising restrictions a welcome move. 'I'm supportive of the decision to restrict unhealthy food and drink advertising on government public transport assets,' she says. 'This policy is about protecting children's health, preventing future obesity and diet-related chronic diseases.' Professor Miller says there are clear links between advertising, unhealthy eating and disease onset. 'Australia's children are currently getting between a third and 40 per cent of their daily intake from 'discretionary' foods,' she says. 'Research shows us that children are inundated with advertising for unhealthy food and drinks as they go about their daily lives. 'We know that exposure to unhealthy food advertising leads to higher intake of these foods. Higher intake of unhealthy food and drinks contributes to overweight and obesity and diet-related chronic diseases such as diabetes, heart disease and cancer. 'For individual people and families this impacts on their daily living and their wellbeing. 'It means they are dealing with the management and treatment of those illnesses, and very sadly people are losing their family members early.' The World Health Organisation and Australia's leading health agencies – as well as Australia's National Obesity and Preventive Health strategies – all recommend a comprehensive suite of policies to reduce children's exposure to unhealthy food and drink marketing, Professor Miller says. 'We all want to live in communities that support people to be active, healthy and well. But right now, the environment that surrounds us is putting our health at risk. This policy is a step in the right direction. 'Sadly, overweight and obesity have overtaken tobacco smoking as Australia's leading causes of illness and premature death. 'Two thirds of adults and one in four children are living with overweight and obesity and this has risen dramatically in recent decades. 'This is major public health problem that warrants public health solutions.' Professor Miller says dietary intake is heavily influenced by a food environment that is 'readily available, affordable and heavily marketed to us'. 'Unfortunately, ultra-processed foods and sugary drinks are cheap, readily available and heavily promoted,' she says. 'Unhealthy food environments also work against parents – they make it harder for parents who are trying to curb the amount of unhealthy food their kids consume, when kids 'pester' their parents for food they see advertised. 'Unhealthy food environments also make it harder for adults who are trying to eat healthily, if healthy choices are not readily available at reasonable prices in a range of settings.' Nutritious eating linked to academic advances New recommended food and drink standards are introducing good eating decisions and habits to school-age children to support improved academic outcomes. The Right Bite food and drink supply standards, developed in partnership with Preventive Health SA, assists any South Australian government schools to select food and drinks to provide or supply to students. The standards promote healthy eating through classifying products into four categories according to their nutritional value – green (fruits, vegetables, cereals), amber (processed meats, full-fat dairy and snack foods), red one (cakes and pastries) and red two (soft drinks, chocolate and lollies). The standards recommend school menus supply 60 per cent of food and drinks from the green category and 40 per cent from the amber category. Red one products should be limited to twice per term while red two food and drinks should not be supplied. 'Research consistently shows that healthy eating is linked to better academic outcomes,' says Dr Natasha Schranz, director engagement and wellbeing, Department for Education. 'Forty per cent of a child's daily energy intake occurs at school, which means schools do play that critical role in creating, promoting and modelling healthy eating behaviours. 'The Right Bite standards assists schools with decisions around food and drink choices wherever food is provided or sold. 'Providing healthier food options in schools helps to create that positive food culture, leading to improved healthy outcomes.' Students embracing a healthy diet in school are in turn spreading a positive eating message to friends and family out of school. 'We know that it's not necessarily individualised behaviour but the environments within which we live, work and play that drive our choices, and so creating healthy eating environments is pertinent to supporting a healthy diet,' Dr Schranz says. 'This is what the Right Bite guidance does: it helps to create that school environment that promotes those food choices for students and also their families, because they're also interacting with things like the canteen menu. It's role modelling healthy eating choices out to families as well.' Right Bite has been well received by schools in South Australia, with more than 30 per cent of canteen managers engaging in online training, more than 200 canteen guides released and many schools using the online resources and tools. 'It's not a mandatory policy – we put the information out to sites and support them to implement within their local context,' Dr Schranz says. 'It can be harder for some sites if they're starting with more challenges than others. Our advice is to start small – don't try to do everything at once. 'We know it can be challenging to shift practices but taking small steps is a great way to start. Maybe it's trying to green up items already on the canteen or OSHC menu, such as adding more salad to products or changing how it's cooked.' As well as changing what's on canteen and tuckshop menus, the Department supports schools other strategies to ensure their students can access and learn about foods that help them thrive. School breakfast programs are encouraged and supported to offer staple foods such as cereal, bread, milk and fruit, while food security grants are offered to schools to address food insecurity, such as building school gardens and cooking programs, and curriculum resources are developed to guide teachers with up-to-date and engaging information. Calls to junk the junk A new partnership between Preventive Health SA and the Department for Infrastructure and Transport aims to create a healthier South Australian community. From July 1, unhealthy food and drink advertising will be prohibited on public transport to reduce its exposure to South Australians. 'We know from decades of research that exposure to unhealthy food advertising is linked with unhealthy eating behaviours,' Preventive Health SA chief executive Marina Bowshall says. 'This is particularly evident for children, so we need to take action.' Around two thirds of the adult population and one third of children are living with overweight or obesity, a factor leading to significant health complications. 'Obesity has now overtaken tobacco as the leading cause of burden of disease,' Bowshall says. 'With 13 per cent of hospital admissions for adults aged 45 to 79 years due to overweight and obesity, we need to look at ways to reduce this. 'How food is marketed, packaged, priced and formulated is the most significant factor impacting overweight and obesity.' The new policy has had positive results in other jurisdictions including London and Amsterdam. 'The modelling from London is very positive and predicts incidences of obesity, diabetes and cardiovascular disease will decrease, which in turn will result in important health and economic gains,' Bowshall says.
