SingHealth trains staff to meet elderly patients' needs

Label:





SINGAPORE: SingHealth has launched two key initiatives - a handbook and workshops aimed at training staff to help elderly patients navigate better and use healthcare services in a more efficient manner.

The handbook, co-developed with the Tsao Foundation, aims to scale up the skills, competencies, clinical experience and knowledge of staff.

Some of the guidelines include recommendations pertaining to staff training, the physical environment and the operational process of the institution.

The age-sensitisation workshop aims to train front-line healthcare professionals - who are typically the first point of contact with elderly patients - to learn how to better relate and serve the needs of the elderly.

The workshop will put them through real life simulation of the challenges faced by the elderly in their daily activities.

For instance, workshop participants attempted to pick up coins on the floor while wearing knee braces to simulate how a patient with arthritis feels.

Other activities included taping participants' fingertips to simulate the loss of sensation.

"The hardest thing for me was trying to put on the shirt with the buttons because it's so hard (to find) where the buttonholes are," said Keith Bryan, senior radiographer at National Heart Centre.

Through role-playing, SingHealth hopes staff will be educated on problems faced by the elderly.

"Many of our forms are in small print and you really need to have good eyesight in order to go through this. This will help the staff to say 'this is really a problem for our patients, so what can we do? Should we look at more elderly-friendly printing, like (having) larger fonts?'" said Isabel Yong, SingHealth's group service quality director.

"Their hearing is not as sharp as many of us but the training will enable the front-line staff to know 'hey when you talk to an elderly patient, be sure that you are facing them so that they can see you at eye level."

Doris Goh, senior patient associate at National Neuroscience Institute, said: "(The workshop) helps me to understand the elderly more as we (get to walk) in their shoes. So when we walk, we know they are slow so we have to slow down ourselves in order to meet their needs."

To date, more than 1,000 front-line staff and supervisors from information counters, registration counters at the specialist outpatient clinics, call centres and other service centres have attended the workshop and SingHealth aims to train about 6000 staff in the next five years.

SingHealth attends to about a million elderly patient visits every year and this figure is set to grow significantly with a rising ageing population.

- CNA/xq



Read More..

India misguided, paranoid over China: Guha

Label:
MUMBAI: A good half-hour into the discussion on 'India, China and the World', historian Ramachandra Guha issued a disclaimer—all the three members on the panel had been to China only once. "We should learn their language, promote quality research, and have a panel on China driven by Chinese scholars," he said. And that was the general tenor of the debate—that the Indian attitude to China was influenced by a mix of ignorance, cautious optimism about partnerships and a whole lot of misguided paranoia. "Don't demonise the Chinese, please," Guha finally said in response to a question.

"China has existed in our imaginations," observed Sunil Khilnani, professor of politics and author of The Idea Of India. "There's been very little sustained engagement with the reality of China and very little of our own produced knowledge about China." It was after the events of 1962 ('war' in the popular imagination, 'skirmish' to the scholars participating in the discussion), explained Khilnani, that a miffed India "withdrew". It's the 50th anniversary of that exchange this year, and "what we haven't been able to do is learn from the defeat", observed Khilnani. Both could have benefited from greater engagement. "China has had a very clear focus on primary education and achieved high levels of literacy before its economic rise. It has also addressed the issue of land reform," said Khilnani. Guha added that China could learn from the "religious, cultural and linguistic pluralism" in India.

But China and India weren't always so out of sync with each other. Srinath Raghavan, a scholar of military history, got both Guha and Khilnani to talk about pre-1962 relations between the two when the picture was rosier. Tagore was interested in China and so was Gandhi. Both were very large countries with large populations and shared what Guha calls a "lack of cultural inferiority". "They were both," he continued, "also heavily dependent on peasant communities." Nehru was appreciative of China's will to modernize and industrialize and its adoption of technology to achieve those ends. In turn, Chinese politicians argued for Indian independence.

Things soured more, feel both Khilnani and Guha, after the Dalai Lama fled to India in 1959. "He was welcomed here as a spiritual leader but the intensification of the conflict dates to the Dalai Lama's flight," said Guha. Both Guha and Khilnani argued that Nehru's decision to not react aggressively to China's occupation of Tibet was, in the long run, the right one and prevented further "militarization" of the region. An audience member wondered if that didn't make India "China's puppet". Guha disagreed. "If there's a Tibetan culture alive today," he said, "it's not because of Richard Gere. Don't believe in the hypocrisy of the Western countries. Will they give them land, employment, dignified refuge? The Tibetans is one of the few cases in which our record is honorable."

But the difference in levels of development and the lopsided trade relations between the two countries have only fuelled the suspicions many Indians seem to harbour about China. People were worried, said Guha, even about cricket balls made in China. Audience questions reflected those worries. A member asked about China's "strategy to conquer the world" and its likely impact on India. Guha cautioned against stereotypes; Khilnani explained, "History is littered with the debris of states that have tried to dominate the world. What we're doing may be more long-lasting."

Read More..

Plants Grow Fine Without Gravity

Label:

When researchers sent plants to the International Space Station in 2010, the flora wasn't meant to be decorative. Instead, the seeds of these small, white flowers—called Arabidopsis thaliana—were the subject of an experiment to study how plant roots developed in a weightless environment.

Gravity is an important influence on root growth, but the scientists found that their space plants didn't need it to flourish. The research team from the University of Florida in Gainesville thinks this ability is related to a plant's inherent ability to orient itself as it grows. Seeds germinated on the International Space Station sprouted roots that behaved like they would on Earth—growing away from the seed to seek nutrients and water in exactly the same pattern observed with gravity. (Related: "Beyond Gravity.")

Since the flowers were orbiting some 220 miles (350 kilometers) above the Earth at the time, the NASA-funded experiment suggests that plants still retain an earthy instinct when they don't have gravity as a guide.

"The role of gravity in plant growth and development in terrestrial environments is well understood," said plant geneticist and study co-author Anna-Lisa Paul, with the University of Florida in Gainesville. "What is less well understood is how plants respond when you remove gravity." (See a video about plant growth.)

The new study revealed that "features of plant growth we thought were a result of gravity acting on plant cells and organs do not actually require gravity," she added.

Paul and her collaborator Robert Ferl, a plant biologist at the University of Florida in Gainesville, monitored their plants from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida using images sent from the space station every six hours.

Root Growth

Grown on a nutrient-rich gel in clear petri plates, the space flowers showed familiar root growth patterns such as "skewing," where roots slant progressively as they branch out.

"When we saw the first pictures come back from orbit and saw that we had most of the skewing phenomenon we were quite surprised," Paul said.

Researchers have always thought that skewing was the result of gravity's effects on how the root tip interacts with the surfaces it encounters as it grows, she added. But Paul and Ferl suspect that in the absence of gravity, other cues take over that enable the plant to direct its roots away from the seed and light-seeking shoot. Those cues could include moisture, nutrients, and light avoidance.

"Bottom line is that although plants 'know' that they are in a novel environment, they ultimately do just fine," Paul said.

The finding further boosts the prospect of cultivating food plants in space and, eventually, on other planets.

"There's really no impediment to growing plants in microgravity, such as on a long-term mission to Mars, or in reduced-gravity environments such as in specialized greenhouses on Mars or the moon," Paul said. (Related: "Alien Trees Would Bloom Black on Worlds With Double Stars.")

The study findings appear in the latest issue of the journal BMC Plant Biology.


Read More..

Australian DJs Behind Prank Call Under Fire

Label:












An outpouring of anger is being directed today at the two Australian radio hosts after the death of a nurse who was caught in the DJs' prank call to hospital where Kate Middleton was treated earlier this week.


Lord Glenarthur, the chairman of King Edward VII's Hospital - the U.K. hospital where the Duchess of Cambridge was receiving treatment, condemned the prank in a letter to the Max Moore-Wilton, chairman of Southern Cross Austereo, the Australian radio station's parent company.


Glenarthur said the prank humiliated "two dedicated and caring nurses," and the consequences were "tragic beyond words," The Associated Press reported.


DJs Mel Greig and Michael Christian, radio shock jocks at Sydney's 2Day FM have been taken off the air, but the company they work for did not fire them or condemn them.


"I think that it's a bit early to be drawing conclusions from what is really a deeply tragic matter," Rhys Holleran, CEO of Southern Cross Austereo told a news conference in Sydney. "I mean, our main concern is for the family. I don't think anyone could have reasonably foreseen that this was going to be a result."


Nurse Jacintha Saldanha was found dead Friday morning after police were called to an address near the hospital to "reports of a woman found unconscious," according to a statement from Scotland Yard.


Circumstances of her death are still being investigated, but are not suspicious at this stage, authorities said Friday.


Following news of Saldanha's death, commentary on social media included posts expressing shock, sadness and anger.








Nurse Duped by 'Queen's' Prank Call Found Dead Watch Video









Jacintha Saldanha, Nurse at Kate Middleton's Hospital, Found Dead Watch Video







A sampling of some of the twitter posts directed at the DJs included: "you scumbag, hope you get what's coming to you" and "I hope you're happy now."


The hospital said that Saldanha worked at the hospital for more than four years. They called her a "first-class nurse" and "a well-respected and popular member of the staff."


The hospital extended their "deepest sympathies" to family and friends, saying that "everyone is shocked" at this "tragic event."


"I am devastated with the tragic loss of my beloved wife Jacintha in tragic circumstances, she will be laid to rest in Shirva, India," Saldanha's husband posted on Facebook.


The duchess spent three days at the hospital undergoing treatment for hyperemesis gravidarum, severe or debilitating nausea and vomiting. She was released from the hospital on Thursday morning.


"The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge are deeply saddened to learn of the death of Jacintha Saldanha," a spokesman from St. James Palace said in a statement.


On Friday, Greig and Christian had been gloating about their successful call to the hospital, in which they pretended to be Queen Elizabeth and Prince Charles and were able to obtain personal information about the Duchess's serious condition.


"You know what they were the worst accents ever and when we made that phone call we were sure a hundred people at least before us would have tried the same thing," said Grieg on air. She added with a laugh, "we were expecting to be hung up on we didn't even know what to say [when] we got through."


"We got through and now the entire world is talking, of course," said her co-host Christian.


When the royal impersonators called the hospital, Saldanha put through to a second nurse who told the royal impersonators that Kate was "quite stable" and hadn't "had any retching."


The hospital apologized for the mistake.


"The call was transferred through to a ward, and a short conversation was held with one of the nursing staff," the hospital said in a statement. "King Edward VII's Hospital deeply regrets this incident."


"This was a foolish prank call that we all deplore," John Lofthouse, the hospital's chief executive, said in the statement. "We take patient confidentiality extremely seriously, and we are now reviewing our telephone protocols."


The radio station also apologized for the prank call.






Read More..

Agencies set up plans to manage cuts if Congress, Obama fail to reach deficit deal

Label:

Federal agencies are sharpening their plans for forced spending cuts starting Jan. 2 if the Obama administration and Congress cannot agree on a deficit reduction strategy in the coming days.


Some agencies envision furloughs for federal workers, while others are mapping out how to slow hiring and outside contracting and put programs on hold if the across-the-board reductions known as a sequester kick in, affecting millions of Americans.

Read More..

Kate hospital hoax call staffer in found dead

Label:





LONDON: A staff member at a hospital which treated Prince William's pregnant wife Catherine was found dead in a suspected suicide Friday, days after being duped by a hoax call from an Australian radio station, reports said.

British police confirmed that they were investigating the "unexplained death" of a woman whose body was discovered at a property near the King Edward VII hospital in central London.

Several British newspapers reported the death of a staff member but there were conflicting reports as to what role the woman had at the hospital.

In what it billed as the "biggest royal prank ever", two presenters from Sydney's 2Day FM station called the hospital on Monday pretending to be Queen Elizabeth II and William's father Prince Charles.

They asked to speak to the former Kate Middleton and a hospital receptionist then put them through to a nurse who gave the presenters private details of the Duchess of Cambridge's severe morning sickness.

The Daily Mail newspaper quoted an unidentified source as saying that the woman appeared to have killed herself at an address just metres away from the hospital.

A Scotland Yard spokesman said: "Police were called at 9:25 am this morning to reports of a woman unconscious at an address in Weymouth Street, W1.

"London Ambulance Service attended and a woman was pronounced dead at the scene. Inquiries continue to establish the circumstances of the incident. The death is being treated as unexplained."

A source in the emergency services told AFP that while the death was being treated as unexplained it was not thought to be suspicious.

Presenters Mel Greig and Michael Christian said sorry earlier this week for the call, even as the station was milking the publicity for it.

"We were very surprised that our call was put through. We thought we'd be hung up on as soon as they heard our terrible accents," the presenters said in a statement.

"We're very sorry if we've caused any issues and we're glad to hear that Kate is doing well."

Kate was admitted to hospital on Monday with acute morning sickness and left on Thursday, saying she was feeling much better.

Her admission to hospital was the first the world knew of her pregnancy. It will be the couple's first child and will be third in line to the British throne after Charles and William.

- AFP/jc



Read More..

India asks Nepal to prevent terror groups from using its soil for infiltration

Label:
NEW DELHI: With several former militants from Jammu & Kashmir recently using Nepal to enter India from Pakistan-occupied-Kashmir (PoK), New Delhi has asked Kathmandu to strengthen its screening process since intelligence inputs suggest that ISI-backed terror groups are trying to push active terrorists in the guise of ex-ultras.

In the recently concluded meet between the Sashatra Seema Bal (SSB) and the Armed Police Force of Nepal (NAPF), India expressed security concerns over more than 100 former militants illegally entering the country via Nepal to avail the government's rehabilitation policy for former militants despite designating four specific routes for their return.

The home ministry has fixed four routes for the ex-militants' return — Poonch-Rawlakote, Uri-Muzaffarabad (both on the LoC), Wagah-Attari border in Amritsar and IGI Airport here. However, the militants from these four routes can return only with Pakistani permission as two LoC routes require permits approved by designated authority of the PoK, while the others need Pakistani passports and visas. The elaborate paperwork encourages touts to help militants — both former and active — sneaking them via Nepal.

Sources said, the SSB brass told its Nepalese counterparts that there were credible inputs about militant outfits such as Hizb-ul-Mujahideen (HuM) trying to push subversive elements in the guise of former militants via Nepal and unless proper screening and scrutiny of those arriving in the Himalayan nation from Pakistan, Dubai or certain other places was done, it could spell trouble for India.

India asked Nepal to step up vigilance on the border and strengthen intelligence network particularly at Barhwa-Sunauli and Birgunj-Raxaul borders.

The Nepalese delegation was also given details of how ISI and terror groups backed by it had established significant network on its soil, HuM, Lashkar-e-Toiba (LeT) and Jaish-e-Muhammad (JeM) were using it to launch terror modules in India. Sources said that HuM had even started forging Indian passports to push militants into the country.

In 2010, the Omar Abdullah government in J&K launched a "return-and-rehabilitation scheme" for former Kashmiri militants who crossed over to PoK for undergoing terror training at the peak of insurgency in late 1980s and early 1990s. Over 200 former militants have returned to the Valley since then, but mostly via Nepal. After sneaking in they surrender to local authorities and claim rehabilitation. Sources said chances are high that active militants use the same route, and then disappear.

A senior official from the security establishment said, "There are still over 30 terror camps aimed at India active in Pakistan. Infiltration on the J&K border is down. This means the groups are trying to push militants through other routes like Nepal's porous borders."

It is estimated that around 3,000 Kashmiri militants are still stationed in various terror camps in PoK.

Read More..

Space Pictures This Week: Lunar Gravity, Venusian Volcano

Label:








































































































');



































































































































































 $'+ doc.ngstore_price_t +'';
html += ' $'+ doc.ngstore_saleprice_t +'';
} else {
html += ' $'+ doc.ngstore_price_t +'';
}
html += '
';

$("#ecom_43331 ul.ecommerce_all_img").append(html);




o.totItems++;

}// end for loop
} // end if data.response.numFound != 0

if(o.totItems != o.maxItems){
if(o.defaultItems.length > 0){
o.getItemByID(o.defaultItems.shift());
} else if(o.isSearchPage && !o.searchComplete){
o.doSearchPage();
} else if(!o.searchComplete) {
o.byID = false;
o.doSearch();
}
}// end if
}// end parseResults function

o.trim = function(str) {
return str.replace(/^\s\s*/, '').replace(/\s\s*$/, '');
}

o.doSearchPage = function(){
o.byID = false;

var tempSearch = window.location.search;
var searchTerms ="default";
var temp;

if( tempSearch.substr(0,7) == "?search"){
temp = tempSearch.substr(7).split("&");
searchTerms = temp[0];
} else {
temp = tempSearch.split("&");
for(var j=0;j 0){
o.getItemByID(o.defaultItems.shift());
} else if(o.isSearchPage){
o.doSearchPage();
} else {
o.doSearch();
}

}// end init function

}// end ecommerce object

var store_43331 = new ecommerce_43331();





store_43331.init();









































































































































































Read More..

Missing Woman Survived on Tomatoes and Snow

Label:












The woman who was stranded in the Sierra Nevada mountains survived for six days by eating tomatoes and snow until she was found by her brother, who was part of a team searching for her and her boyfriend.


Paula Lane, 46, was rescued Wednesday. Her boyfriend, Roderick Clifton, died.


He had left her to find help after their Jeep got stuck in the snow as they drove from Clifton's mother's home in Citrus Heights, Calif., to their own home in Gardnerville, Nev., Nov. 29.


They were reported missing the following day after Lane failed to meet her mother for a planned dinner and wasn't reachable by cellphone, according to KXTV, an ABC TV affiliate in Sacramento.


The couple are believed to have taken their Jeep Cherokee off-roading when they became stuck off Highways 88-89 in Alpine County.


The area where they got stuck was so remote that cellphone service was limited. The couple were unable to call for help, and police couldn't locate them using their cellphones.


Clifton, 44, never returned to Lane. His body was found Wednesday, several miles from the highway. Police have not yet confirmed how he died, but they don't believe foul play was involved.






Citrus Heights Police Dept.











Missing Nevada Couple Found, Boyfriend Dead Watch Video









Lane had set out to find help after her boyfriend failed to return.


Lane's family is happy she is alive.


"It's been a rough haul, waiting all those days, trying to know if she'd made it or not," Lane's older sister, Linda Hathaway, said at a news conference Thursday at Carson Tahoe Regional Hospital, the Carson City, Nev., facility to which Lane was taken and treated for first-degree frostbite and malnourishment.


Police had launched a manhunt for the missing couple, but bad weather at times prevented authorities from sending up planes or helicopters.


Hathaway had given up hope, and said she had prepared her sister's 11-year-old twin sons for the worst.
"We sat them down to tell them that their mother may not come back," she said.


But the women's brother kept searching along the route that Lane would have taken home. Lane and Clifton routinely made the drive from Citrus Heights to Gardnerville.


Hathaway said her brother eventually found Lane crawling along Highway 88.


"I took the call and to hear him say, 'I found her, I found her,'" Hathaway said.


When she was reunited with her sister, Hathaway recalled: "I gave her the biggest kiss that I could without hurting her."


Hathaway described her sister as tenacious.


"I tell you, my sister may be little, but she is mighty and she's a survivor and loves life," she added.


Dr. Vijay Maiya, Lane's physician, said his patient had apparently found shelter by "hiding out in a hollow tree," in addition to eating the tomatoes they had with them.


"She is medically stable. She's recovering nicely," Maiya said at the news conference, adding that 25 percent of Lane's recovery would be physical and 75 percent would be "emotional."


Maiya expects to keep Lane in the hospital through the weekend to monitor her recovery.


ABC News' Russell Goldman contributed to this report.



Read More..

All 13 Singaporeans on board stranded Indonesian ferry safe

Label:





SINGAPORE: All 13 Singaporeans on board a Singapore-Tanjong Pinang ferry which ran aground off Lobam island on Wednesday night are safe.

Ferry operator Sindo Ferry and Indonesia's Search and Rescue Agency, BASARNAS, gave this update in response to queries from Channel NewsAsia.

Of the 97 passengers, one Indonesian lady is still in hospital for medical attention.

The ferry, MV Sindo 31, left Singapore from Tanah Merah Ferry Terminal at 6.20pm on Wednesday.

At about 8pm, Sindo Ferry (formerly known as Penguin Ferry) received a call from the captain of the vessel that the ferry had ran aground off Lobam island.

The passengers and crew were stranded for around two hours.

Before help arrived, an Indonesian woman, accompanied by two family members were sent to a nearby hospital by local maritime police for urgent medical attention.

At about 10pm, two smaller local ferries, each with a capacity of 40 people, arrived to pick up the stranded passengers.

With combined efforts by the Tanjung Uban Sea and Coast Guards and BASARNAS, the passengers were ferried to Tanjung Uban, where they boarded a standby vessel , MV Penguin 7, and arrived at Tanjong Pinang near midnight.

The stranded ferry was not damaged and is currently moored at Tanjong Uban for further investigations.

Sindo Ferry says the stranded ferry is seaworthy and it is investigating the cause of the accident.

Weather conditions and low-tide are believed to have caused the accident.

- CNA/de



Read More..

Subscribe to: Posts (Atom)