
Autistic teen with needle phobia helped to go abroad by NHS
A teenager who is autistic and has learning difficulties has been given the ability to travel abroad for the first time, by a unique collaboration by NHS teams in London. Terence Panzu-Lema, who is 19 and from Wandsworth, south-west London, has extreme needle phobia, and had been unable to get the vaccines needed to visit family in the Democratic Republic of Congo.Terence's mother, Chantal Panzu, suggested that the injections could be given while her son was under general anaesthetic for routine dental treatment.The NHS agreed, and specialist teams from King's College Hospital and University College London Hospital came together to administer the yellow fever, rabies and typhoid vaccines.
"When we received the request from Terence's mum, who has always been very proactive in advocating for her son, we wanted to try and make it work," said Charlotte Curl, the consultant in special care dentistry at King's. She explained how it involved co-ordinating "many members" of a number of teams from the two different hospitals to come together.With this unique collaboration Ms Curl said it "enabled both the dental care and the vaccines to be delivered consecutively while Terence was anaesthetised".Ms Panzu said: "(Terence) was due to have six filings under general anaesthetic, so it seemed like a good opportunity to get his travel vaccines at the same time".She added: "Everyone we encountered on this journey, both from King's and UCLH, has been amazing. I can't thank them enough for enabling Terence to be able enjoy his first family holiday."Sneha Baljekar, lead clinical nurse specialist for travel health at the Hospital for Tropical Diseases at UCLH added: "It was wonderful to support Terence and Chantal with this journey. "The whole team is delighted that we were able to provide this service for Terence and reassurance for his family to be able to travel safely in future."
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The Guardian
37 minutes ago
- The Guardian
Dame June Clark obituary
When June Clark was elected to the governing council of the Royal College of Nursing (RCN) in 1969, becoming its youngest ever member at 28, it was still a genteel body. Many of her fellows wore hats and gloves to meetings. Clark was soon quietly taken aside and asked to stop breastfeeding her baby in the council chamber. Although she reluctantly complied on that occasion, Clark, who has died aged 83, would go on to make a career of prodding the nursing establishment to modernise, and especially to shake off its traditional deference to doctors. She was a key figure in the campaign to make all UK nurse training degree-based, which was finally agreed in 2009, and was an early exponent of digital care records, which are slowly coming to pass. Serving for 24 years on the RCN council, with only one short break, she was the college's president from 1990 to 1994. Never shy of challenging authority, she addressed her 1991 presidential speech directly to the then Conservative health secretary, William Waldegrave, who had introduced a quasi-market NHS system just weeks previously, telling him to his face: 'The reality is that the rough discipline of the market is producing unforeseen consequences which are already causing suffering to patients, chaos in the service and great anxiety.' Clark's forthrightness made her a key player in the world of health management, as well as a government adviser and a global authority on nurse education and practice. With her grounding in classics, she was a passionate and persuasive orator. Admirably punctilious, she would habitually take to the podium in debates at RCN congress by saying that she was going to make 'just three points' – and would do just that. Compromise did not come naturally, however, and supporters and friends would sometimes part company with her over the practicality of her policy ambitions or her impatience for faster change. She could also appear dismissive of some policy areas, such as learning disability nursing, which interested her less. Born in Sheffield to Marion (nee Walters), a homemaker, and Ernest Hickery, a steel industry trade union official, she was christened Margaret but was always known by her middle name, June. Her parents came from south Wales but her father had been temporarily relocated to Sheffield during the second world war. The family soon returned to Risca, near Newport, a community reliant on steel and coal. June excelled at Pontywaun grammar school, and became committed to pursuing a nursing career once she had begun volunteering as a teenager with St John Ambulance and then, every Saturday, at St Woolos hospital in nearby Newport. She would have preferred to have gone straight from school into nurse training, but after much argument with her parents they eventually corralled her into accepting a place at University College London (UCL), from which she emerged in 1962 with a degree in classics and a steady boyfriend, Roger Clark, also a classics scholar. Once she had finished at UCL, her long-awaited nurse training began at University College hospital in London. There, in 1963, she became the first delegate of the then Student Nurses' Association (later absorbed by the RCN) to the annual National Union of Students' conference, moving a resolution condemning 'the archaic principles governing the lives of student nurses'. It was passed unanimously. She qualified in 1965 and married Roger the following year, moving to Berkshire, where he had begun a career in administration at Reading University. Rather than settling for a hospital job on qualification, she undertook further training to become a health visitor, beginning her work in that role in 1967 in Mortimer, near Reading, where she set up a family planning clinic and a health education programme in local schools. From then onwards, Clark was a fierce proponent of the value of health visiting, which, unlike many others, she considered to be an integral part of nursing. She particularly lamented the narrowing of the health visitor's remit from the 1970s onwards, and later, in 1985, as part of a doctorate at South Bank Polytechnic, she wrote an influential thesis on health visiting that set out a theoretical framework she believed it lacked. She also established an annual research workshop for health visitors. Similarly, Clark believed that personal care delivered by social care workers was also nursing, and called it a 'travesty' that such work was assessed and commissioned by social workers, not nurses. She was a member of the 1997 royal commission on long-term care that called for free personal care in the UK – a recommendation accepted only in Scotland. After her start as a health visitor, Clark had a varied career in the health service. She filled clinical nursing posts during the 70s before combining teaching and research with bringing up a family, and then resuming her work as a health visitor in Berkshire in 1981. From the mid-80s she held senior health authority positions in London, including as a special projects coordinator at Lewisham and North Southwark, director of community nursing services at West Lambeth and chief nursing adviser at Harrow – all the while writing regularly in the nursing press and even serving as agony aunt in Mother & Baby magazine. In 1990 she moved into academia as professor of nursing and head of the new school of health studies at Middlesex Polytechnic (now Middlesex University). She later described this as her toughest job and, burned out, she took early retirement after five years. But she set Middlesex on course to be a leading centre of health education. After leaving Middlesex, Clark spent large parts of the next two years studying and advising in Europe and the US. Much of what she saw reaffirmed her faith in the NHS: she would often recall arriving at a nursing conference in Los Angeles to be asked by her hotel porter if she might look at a lump in his mouth as he could not afford to go to a doctor. Clark was made a dame in 1995 for her services to nursing and health visiting, and in 1997 was tempted back to academia and to Wales, becoming professor of community nursing at Swansea University. Thereafter she focused increasingly on Welsh health affairs, including leading reviews for the Welsh government and campaigning successfully for legislation on safe staffing levels. She grew disenchanted with the direction of the RCN, believing it was giving too much emphasis to its trade union function at the expense of its role as a professional body. However, she remained an active member and sat on the college's Wales board as recently as 2022. In retirement she also led the RCN's involvement in the National Pensioners Convention. Clark stepped down from her Swansea post in 2003, on the same day that Roger retired from Reading University. They had by then gradually relocated from Berkshire to Mumbles, near Swansea, where she died while picking flowers in their garden. She is survived by Roger, their children, Andrew and Gill, five grandchildren and her sister, Kay. Margaret June Clark, nursing leader, born 31 May 1941; died 14 May 2025


BBC News
44 minutes ago
- BBC News
Norway: Doctor Arne Bye jailed for raping and assaulting patients
A court in Norway has sentenced a doctor to 21 years in prison for the rape and sexual abuse of dozens of women, in a case that has shocked the Scandinavian GP Arne Bye has been convicted of 70 counts of rape and sexual assault. He was also convicted of 82 counts of abusing his position as a doctor, Norwegian media all of the offences took place during medical examinations that Bye carried out on his patients while he worked as a physician in the small town of Frosta - a tiny community of fewer than 3,000 residents, near Trondheim on the west coast of was also banned from practising medicine and ordered to pay compensation. Warning: this story contains details some may find court had deliberated over a lengthy indictment, which included allegations spanning nearly two decades relating to 94 women, according to Norwegian pleaded guilty to some of the crimes, and was also acquitted on a number of the the court in Trondheim on Friday, Judge Espen Haug said the case was "very serious" and described Bye's actions as "absolutely unacceptable". "The defendant's actions happened in a place and setting where people are supposed to feel safe," Judge Haug said. "His actions have undermined public trust in the health service as well as doctors in general."The 55-year-old defendant stood on his feet, appearing calm and unmoved as the maximum sentence was handed courtroom was then asked to sit as it took more than an hour for the judgement to be read authorities had first alerted the police to concerns about Bye in August 2022, and he was charged a year had secretly installed a camera in his office, Norwegian media reports. Police uncovered the scale of his offences after reviewing hundreds of hours of of women, reportedly aged between 14 and 67, from the small, rural community came forward. The earliest complaint dated back to 2004, the most recent from to the case had been the methods Bye used for medical four months, the court heard details of non-consensual touching and inappropriate pelvic examinations conducted by act constitute rape under Norwegian law, which makes a distinction between penetrative and non-penetrative was also shown to have used non-medical equipment, such as a deodorant, during these exams, with no justification for doing defence attorneys had sought a lower sentence of around 17-18 years as Bye had pleaded guilty to the rape of 21 told public broadcaster NRK that they were satisfied with the verdict, and would review the outcome before considering any lawyer also said he would take some time to read the verdict properly before considering whether to you have been affected by any issues in this report, help and support is available at BBC Action Line.


Medical News Today
an hour ago
- Medical News Today
Food and nutrition for older adults
Medically reviewed by Shilpa Amin, M.D., CAQ, FAAFP, Family Medicine , Women's Health , Geriatrics , Integrative Medicine , Clinical Research , Jurisprudence , — Written by Mandy French on June 6, 2025 Nutrition needs Foods to eat Meal planning Sample menus Summary Food and nutritional needs can change as a person ages. Certain foods and vitamins are even more important for older adults. As a person ages, their nutritional needs and caloric intake requirements change. To meet these new needs, it is important for them to maintain a nutritious and balanced diet and reduce their portion sizes if their activity level has lowered. Eating a balanced diet and staying physically active can help support overall health as a person ages. As people age, their bodies change, and so do their nutritional needs. For example, the body naturally loses muscle mass and strength with age. This begins around their 40s and declines more rapidly in their 60s. Losing muscle can contribute to the slower rate at which the body uses calories. Bones also begin to thin as an individual ages. This, along with muscle loss, can contribute to a less active lifestyle. A person may also become less mobile and more sedentary. Certain medical conditions and medications can also make it more difficult for the body to absorb certain nutrients, such as vitamin B12. Older adults may need to consume more protein to help reduce the loss of lean muscle mass. It is also common for older adults to not drink enough fluids to stay hydrated. One cause of this is the gradual decline of the thirst sensation as they age. Therefore, older adults need to drink enough fluids to stay hydrated. Older adults typically need fewer calories than they did when they were younger. This is partly due to the loss of muscle mass, and a slower metabolism also contributes to this need. The following table shows the recommended caloric intake for people assigned male or female at birth who are ages 61 years old and older. This compares to the higher needs of adults assigned male or female at birth who are between the ages of 19 and 60 years old: Males: 2,200 to 3,000, depending on activity level 2,200 to 3,000, depending on activity level Females: 1,600 to 2,400, depending on activity level » Learn more: Foods that support aging Eating enough protein is important to help slow or prevent the natural loss of muscle that occurs with age. The Department of Agriculture (USDA) calculator can provide an exact recommendation for the amount of protein and other nutrients individuals need to consu me daily. While it can be helpful to find a personalized recommendation for protein intake, the following table shows a general daily recommendation for adults assigned male or female at birth who are 60 years old and older. » Learn more: High protein foods Eating enough fruits and vegetables is important to help prevent certain conditions and illnesses. Fruits and vegetables are also important sources of vital nutrients, such as: potassium fiber vitamin C folate vitamin A The following table shows the general daily fruit and vegetable intake recommendations for people assigned male or female at birth who are 60 years old and older. » Learn more: Fruits vs. vegetables It is important for older adults to drink plenty of water to stay hydrated, help with digestion, and assist with the absorption of nutrients. They can also choose unsweetened beverages, such as 100% fruit or vegetable juice, low fat or fat-free milk, and fortified soy beverages. Dietary guidelines recommend that older adults limit their alcohol intake. These individuals may experience the effects of alcohol more easily than they did when they were younger, which can increase their risk of falls and other injuries. » Learn more: Symptoms of dehydration One reason some people may not get the amount of nutrition they need is that it is difficult to decide what to eat. Meal planning helps take the guesswork out of eating and ensures that people eat a variety of nutritious foods throughout the day. When considering meals to plan, an individual may want to keep the following in mind: Preparation time: Some meals can be made in just a few minutes. However, if a person enjoys cooking, they may want to try meals and recipes that are a bit more challenging. When planning a meal, consider the preparation time and anything else going on at the time. Some meals can be made in just a few minutes. However, if a person enjoys cooking, they may want to try meals and recipes that are a bit more challenging. When planning a meal, consider the preparation time and anything else going on at the time. Calories: Consuming the right amount of calories can help overall health and help a person maintain a moderate weight. Consider the amount of calories in the foods to be sure to get the right amount of nutrients. Always speak with a healthcare professional about any weight and fitness goals before making big changes. » Learn more: A guide to eating a balanced diet » Learn more: Healthy aging and why it is important As people age, their nutrition needs change, so it is important to ensure they eat a healthy and balanced diet. This can help reduce the risk of certain conditions, such as diabetes and heart disease. It can also help prevent the natural muscle loss that occurs with age. It is important to eat a variety of foods from each food group and remember that caloric intake requirements generally reduce with age. A person can speak with a healthcare professional about ways to get the nutrition they need. Health Insurance / Medical Insurance Medicare / Medicaid / SCHIP