Latest news with #VAD
Newsweek
06-07-2025
- Health
- Newsweek
Parents Told Newborn's Noises Are 'Normal'—Then Comes Devastating Diagnosis
Based on facts, either observed and verified firsthand by the reporter, or reported and verified from knowledgeable sources. Newsweek AI is in beta. Translations may contain inaccuracies—please refer to the original content. Two parents from Toronto, Canada, were excited to bring their newborn daughter home from hospital, but just a few weeks later, they were rushing her to the emergency room. Stephanie Mulhall-Atkinson and Justin Atkinson (@warriergirlsloane) shared their story on Instagram, where they said their daughter, Sloane, had been making a soft but persistent grunting noise. Stephanie, 37, told Newsweek that the couple brought this to the attention of doctors, nurses and their pediatrician. From left: Justin Atkinson holds baby Sloane wrapped in hospital bedsheets. From left: Justin Atkinson holds baby Sloane wrapped in hospital bedsheets. @warriorgirlsloane "We were told that she was just moaning and that it was normal and that was just her normal baby noises, which we now know is not true," Stephanie said. The grunting, the couple now know, was not harmless. It was a sign that Sloane was struggling to breathe, and her body was working overtime to survive. The parents said several symptoms were overlooked. "She would mostly grunt when she was sleeping and being held," Stephanie added. "We also noticed that she was sweaty … and was happier when she was laying by herself." When Sloane stopped eating one morning and had a faint ring of blue around her mouth—usually a sign of cyanosis where oxygen levels are low—the parents took her to the ER. At The Hospital for Sick Children (SickKids), doctors told Stephanie and Justin that Sloane's grunting meant their baby was in distress. "We were shocked and angry," Justin said. "Everything quickly declined from there." Within hours, Sloane was in the emergency operating room, surrounded by more than 20 specialists. A cardiology fellow performed an echocardiogram that revealed her heart was barely functioning. Then came the devastating diagnosis: dilated cardiomyopathy, a condition where the heart becomes enlarged and weakened, leaving it unable to pump blood effectively. A week later, doctors confirmed she was in end-stage heart failure, and a transplant would be Sloane's only chance at survival. "You can't even comprehend what's happening," Stephanie said. "To hear that your tiny perfect 'healthy' baby needs a heart transplant to survive is truly beyond words." Sloane has now spent seven months in hospital. The family relocated from Vancouver to Toronto's SickKids Hospital, one of only three centers in Canada equipped to implant a Ventricular Assist Device (VAD). This now keeps Sloane alive as she waits for a donor heart. Sloane has now been on the transplant list for six months. The average wait time in Canada is six to 12 months. "We're just living life as 'normally' as possible until then," Stephanie said. "She's the happiest, funniest girl. Each day, we focus on her development and keeping her growing and getting strong, so that her recovery posttransplant goes smoothly! We can't wait to be able to take her home."
Sunday World
23-06-2025
- Health
- Sunday World
Fundraiser for Wexford toddler with heart failure reaches €36k
Alfie Hearne is awaiting a heart transplant Alfie Hearne from Screen was admitted to Children's Health Ireland, Crumlin at the start of April to undergo treatment for heart failure caused by Viral Myocarditis. The tot, who is set to turn two next month, spent 3 weeks on life support before he was transferred to Freeman Hospital in Newcastle upon Tyne for specialist cardiac treatment. Family friend Domhnall McArdle set up a GoFundMe to help support his parents, Kenneth and Johanna Hearne as they and their two daughters need to relocate to the UK. Read more The tot had a Ventricular Assist Device (VAD) implanted, and must now remain at the Freeman Hospital in Newcastle indefinitely as he awaits a heart transplant. 'Alfie is a happy, active little boy who loves tractors and playing outside in the sandpit,'the GoFundMe page reads. 'Before Alfie got sick he was in perfect health and would spend his day running around after his two older sisters Eileen & Elizabeth. Alfie Hearne with his parents, Johanna and Kenneth, and sisters Eileen and Elizabeth (GoFundMe) 'Due to the nature of Alfie's treatment plan, his parents are travelling over and back to Newcastle, but now need to relocate the family there indefinitely.' So far, 450 donors have raised €36,015 of a €60,00 target. Scoil Ghormain Castletown raised €7,830 from a sponsored walk, while St Jude's Senior Camogie Team raised €540. His parents previously told the Irish Independent that when Alfie first got sick at the end of March, they thought he just had a cold. 'My wife Johanna brought him to the doctors on a Monday and he presented like he had a chest infection,' dad Kenneth said. 'He was prescribed antibiotics and sent home. Alfie Hearne (GoFundMe) "She wasn't happy with him the following day, and then on the Wednesday she brought him to CareDoc and again they said it was a chest infection and to keep an eye on it. "On Thursday, it seemed worse, so we brought him to the hospital. They thought he might have developed pneumonia, but when they did an x-ray on him, Alife's heart was enlarged. At that point they sent an ambulance from Crumlin Children's Hospital for him straight away.' "He's been fitted with a VAD (Ventricular Assist Device) which assists his heart in pumping blood to the rest of his body,' the father of three explained. Alfie Hearne (GoFundMe) News in 90 Seconds - Monday June 23 "The left hand-side of his heart has severe impairment and there's mild impairment to the right side of his heart.' Kenneth said that the couple were taking turns spending time in Newcastle with Alfie, while the other parent remained at home with their two daughters. 'It's not easy, with two other young children and another on the way,' "At the moment, we're staying in a house attached to the hospital in Newcastle. But that wouldn't be an ideal place to bring a newborn baby in a few months time.'
Al Bawaba
16-06-2025
- Business
- Al Bawaba
Mindware Expands Autodesk Relationship to Drive Digital Transformation in the Gulf and KSA
Mindware, a leading value-added distributor (VAD) in the Middle East and Africa, has announced an expansion of its relationship with Autodesk, a global leader in software for architects, builders, engineers, designers, manufacturers, 3D artists and production teams. Already an authorized Autodesk distributor in the Levant and RoME (Rest of Middle East) regions, Mindware will now extend its expertise to the Gulf and Saudi Arabia (KSA), bringing Autodesk's industry-leading solutions to a wider audience and accelerating digital transformation across the Architecture, Engineering, Construction and Operations (AECO), manufacturing, and media & entertainment sectors.'This is a natural evolution of our long-standing relationship with Autodesk,' said Philippe Jarre, President, Mindware Group. 'Our proven expertise in the Levant region has positioned us as a trusted partner, and we are excited to bring that same commitment to the Gulf and KSA. With Autodesk's world-class solutions and our extensive channel ecosystem, we are creating unparalleled opportunities for businesses to thrive in the digital era.'Mindware will provide a comprehensive suite of value-added services, including partner enablement, technical support, consulting, and go-to-market strategies to drive Autodesk adoption. The partnership will also focus on reseller training, industry-specific workshops, and live demonstrations, ensuring businesses can maximize the benefits of Autodesk's AI-driven automation, cloud-based collaboration, and data-driven design Autodesk has been central to delivering the solutions that enable the AECO and manufacturing industry's digital transformation. In the GCC, digital twin technology and smart infrastructure are gaining ground in the AECO sector, as well as in manufacturing, where AI-driven automation is revolutionizing production processes."We are thrilled to strengthen our collaboration with Mindware and expand our reach in the GCC,' said Claudette Reuter, Senior Manager, Emerging Markets Channel Sales, at Autodesk. 'With Mindware's regional expertise and strong partner network, we are empowering businesses to embrace innovation, enhance efficiency, and drive sustainable growth.' By expanding their relationship, Mindware and Autodesk are set to accelerate the digital transformation journey of the Gulf and KSA, enabling enterprises to design, build, and innovate with greater speed and intelligence.
New Statesman
11-06-2025
- Health
- New Statesman
Australia is no model for assisted dying
Photo by Kelly Barnes / AAP Image via Alamy Australian laws on voluntary assisted dying (VAD) are deemed so similar to the Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill that three quarters of overseas witnesses invited to give evidence to MPs were from Australia. 'This is not a revolutionary law reform,' Alex Greenwich, a politician from New South Wales, told the bill's scrutiny committee earlier this year. 'It has been tried and tested, we have appropriate safeguards in place throughout Australia, and they work.' Although Australian states extend the six-month life expectancy requirement to a year for those with neurodegenerative conditions, in terms of eligibility, process and safeguards, their laws are similar to the UK's bill. The two differ only in that self-administration of life-ending drugs would be permitted here, and a multidisciplinary panel would review cases. So when Kim Leadbeater, Labour MP and the bill's sponsor, responded with a heart emoji and '#ChoiceAtTheEndOfLife' to a Guardian article published on 7 June that showed the Australian system being abused, eyebrows were raised. An elderly couple had been granted VAD when neither were terminally ill; medics in New South Wales effectively greenlit their suicide pact. 'Looks like the safeguards didn't work,' Mark Taubert, an NHS consultant and the vice-president of the European Association for Palliative Care, responded on X. According to the palliative care doctor Rachel Clarke, the story 'could not highlight more starkly the dangers of the law we are currently debating'. MPs hearing evidence on the bill had little time with six Australian witnesses, all of whom were supportive of VAD. Their arguments didn't always stand up to scrutiny. 'The medications are completely effective. I have not experienced any failures,' said Chloe Furst, a palliative care doctor from South Australia and board member of Voluntary Assisted Dying Australia and New Zealand. But, MPs pointed out, there is no requirement that a doctor be present when someone self-administers, nor is there provision for reporting complications. In Western Australia, where this information is collected, complications were recorded in 4.3 per cent of deaths in 2023-24. Asked if it was a concern that a 'large proportion of people who opted for assisted dying cited being a burden as their reason', another witness, Meredith Blake from the University of Western Australia, replied this was 'not the evidence that we have got'. Except it is. Official state figures showed 35 per cent of those seeking VAD cited being a burden on family, friends or carers as their reason for doing so. Blake replied: 'If there are people who are saying they are a burden, that does not mean that their decision is not voluntary.' While MPs were told Australian palliative care doctors had 'embraced' VAD, I have spoken with medics in Australia who are troubled by how the legislation operates. Academics and politicians are, too. Robert Clark, a former attorney-general and MP in Victoria wrote to the committee twice with his observations: the second time after his fellow Australians had addressed MPs. Numerous aspects of their evidence were 'factually incorrect or incomplete', Clark claimed. There was not adequate palliative care available to all terminally ill patients in Australia. Evidence didn't show any reduction in non-medically assisted suicide. The right of doctors to object to VAD was not respected. Many doctors 'feel unable to raise concerns about VAD… lest they suffer adverse professional or career consequences, or else they are leaving the hospital system altogether', he said. Subscribe to The New Statesman today from only £8.99 per month Subscribe British palliative care doctor Alex Hughes recently relayed his experience of assisted dying while working in Australia. Hughes, who is neutral on VAD in principle, described a borderline case in which it seemed the patient had chosen to die because of poor alternative care options. In another, he suspected the man may have been influenced by depression, but this had gone unexplored in assessment. Were assisted dying to come to the UK, doctors would be 'at a heightened risk of unconscious bias… [and] may lean towards giving patients the 'benefit of the doubt', granting assisted dying to individuals who, in reality, have more than six months to live.' The events described in the Guardian confirm that risk is not merely hypothetical. Ahead of its return to the Commons on 13 June, 1,000 doctors urged MPs to vote against the assisted dying bill. They argued it is 'deeply flawed' and unsafe. Similar statements have been made by the Royal College of Physicians and the Royal College of Psychiatrists, which say they cannot support the legislation as it stands. Such concerns are not 'noise', as Leadbeater has suggested. Many critics have no issue with the principle of safe VAD. But the passage of the bill has revealed law-making at its worst: rushed debate, the views of the vulnerable ignored or downplayed, and crucial information on how the bill would work absent. Supporters say there will be time to iron out details later. That is too risky. Under current plans, some vulnerable people will be helped – in Hughes's words – to have 'an inappropriate assisted death'. He now poses two critical questions for MPs: how many vulnerable people slipping through the net is acceptable? And can adequate safeguards be put in place 'without creating a system so cumbersome that it becomes unworkable'? It's time for MPs to be honest with themselves and the public: enabling some an autonomous death through assisted dying will inevitably put others at risk of harm. [See also: Has any Chancellor faced a challenge this daunting?] Related
ABC News
25-05-2025
- Health
- ABC News
Three decades after the NT first legalised voluntary assisted dying, Territorians are still waiting on change
For Steve, every day is more painful than the last. Warning: This story contains graphic details of health conditions. After four-and-a-half years of medical treatment, the cancer that originated in his lungs is still spreading, while a tumour in his neck bleeds a half-a-litre of blood a week. At 62 years old, with every medical avenue exhausted, his options are limited. "I'm looking forward to an agonising number of weeks," he said. "If I have a fall I'll possibly bleed out here at home. Otherwise I can admit myself to hospital and bleed out there." Steve, who has asked for his surname not to be used, was in his thirties when the Northern Territory became the first Australian jurisdiction to legalise voluntary assisted dying (VAD) in 1995. The legalisation was short-lived. In 1997, federal parliament passed a bill, introduced by Liberal MP Kevin Andrews, that overturned the law and prevented both of Australia's territories from legalising VAD until 2022. As of 2025, the Northern Territory is Australia's only state or territory without VAD legislation, with the ACT passing laws last year. At his home in Weddell, a suburb in Darwin's rural area, Steve questions why the process is taking so long. "I just want the choice to be able to go in my own time, without all the pain that I know I'm going to face. No mess, no fuss basically," he said. With weeks to live, Steve will admit himself to hospital when the time comes and "try [to] pass as quickly as he can". "Without VAD that's the only option I have, except for taking my own life, which I don't really want to do," he said. In 1995, then-chief minister Marshall Perron brought the Rights of the Terminally Ill Bill before the NT parliament. He said he found his government debating two main groups in opposition — the NT Council of Churches and the Australian Medical Association (AMA). "The AMA were simply saying that this had never been done before, that these matters should be left to doctors," he said. Philip Nitschke, a former physician and high-profile VAD advocate who has rallied the medical community to support the practice, said he found the AMA took a "paternalistic" approach to what was a personal issue. "The argument was that doctors don't end lives, doctors save lives, [and] if you start ending lives it will destroy the so-called doctor-patient relationship," he said. Thirty years later the AMA has shifted its stance, updating its position statement on VAD to focus on regulation rather than opposition. The NT Council of Churches, Mr Perron said, was "a different kettle of fish". In 1995, the group argued VAD was antithetical to foundational Christian values, a position it continues to hold. The Australian Christian Lobby has repeatedly voiced its opposition to VAD over the years and has implored the current NT Country Liberal Party (CLP) government to consider whether there is demand for such legislation. The NT's Catholic Bishop in Darwin, Charles Gauci, said he opposed the practice, believing that it was "not an ethical way to go", but had sympathy for people who felt the need to use it. "We need to provide loving, palliative care for the dying person and their families," he said. Charles Darwin University senior lecturer Devaki Monani, who in 2023 sat on the expert advisory panel tasked with consulting NT communities on potential VAD legislation, said religion remained a concern for some. "A lot of people came up to me after the consultation and said 'look, I'm Christian and VAD is at crossroads with my belief systems'," she said. "It was a big elephant in the room for a lot of community members." In December 2022, a 25-year ban on the territories' rights to legislate VAD crumbled. The Restoring Territory Rights Bill, spearheaded by Darwin-based MP Luke Gosling and Canberra MP Alicia Payne, passed the federal Senate, overturning "Andrews bill". But change has been slow to eventuate in the NT. The former NT Labor government was criticised for inaction when it said in 2023 it would not progress VAD legislation until at least 2024, after the territory election. In July 2024, an expert advisory panel commissioned by Labor handed down its final report recommending the government bring back VAD in the NT. Progress has since stalled again, with the CLP government, elected in August, citing a lack of community consultation for not yet drafting legislation. Chief Minister Lia Finocchiaro has emphasised the importance of including Indigenous Australians in the consultation process. "Aboriginal people are very important stakeholders in this conversation," she said this month. "The original report was consulted on up and down the Stuart Highway in the main towns, it wasn't taken out to remote communities." Dr Monani said the expert advisory panel's process had included remote Indigenous residents. "All communities across the territory were given the opportunity to contribute, and Indigenous communities did so too," she said. According to its final report, the advisory panel held 10 consultation sessions with communities, including the remote towns of Nhulunbuy and Wadeye, and 47 consultations with health, education, community and faith organisations over an eight-month period. It found 73 per cent of Territorians believed a person should be able to choose when they die. The report also made several findings on "cultural issues relevant to the NT", including the importance of cross-cultural communication and trauma-informed care. In May 2025, 30 years after the Rights of the Terminally Ill Bill was legislated, independent MLA Justine Davis brought forward a motion urging the NT government to implement VAD. On the same day, the government tasked the parliament's Legal and Constitutional Affairs Committee with consulting communities across the Northern Territory on VAD and, if recommended, providing drafting instructions for a new law. The committee will be required to report back by September 30. "Today marks a significant victory for people in the Northern Territory," Ms Davis said on the day. "This decision will bring much needed relief for those who are suffering." But for Steve, while that news is welcome, any change that comes will be too late. "I wish it had been available for me but that's not possible. So I just hope the baton will be carried on and people in future won't suffer," he said.
