As Strike Continues in Kenya, top doctors ordered to start working weekends to help save more lives

High rates of deaths at weekends mean hospital consultants must start working on Saturdays and Sundays

Hospital consultants will be made to work weekends under radical plans to combat higher death rates on Saturdays and Sundays.

Under the £1billion proposal, routine minor surgery will also be available for conditions such as hernias along with blood and heart tests and ­biopsies.

X-ray, ultrasound, CT and MRI departments are to be kept open as part of the improved service.
Hospitals that fail to implement the changes could face huge fines.

Consultants will have the new hours written into their contracts to force through the plans.
It comes after it was revealed patients were up to 16% more likely to die in ­hospitals at ­weekends.
NHS medical chief Sir Bruce Keogh said: “It’s strange that we should wind down on a Friday and warm up on a Sunday while ­theatres are empty, outpatient clinics echo, ­diagnostic kit isn’t being used and people are waiting for treatment.”

Under Sir Bruce’s plans, within three years patients admitted as ­emergencies will see a consultant within 14 hours.

Those already on wards will be reviewed by a senior doctor every 24 hours and intensive care cases will be reviewed by one twice a day.

Hospitals currently rely on junior doctors for Saturdays and Sundays. But hospitals which refuse to employ consultants at weekends could barred from having trainees.
Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt said: “I want the NHS to provide seven-day services so more patients get the right care when they need it.”

The NHS Employers organisation welcomed the plans.
Chief executive Dean Royles said: “We are seeing health services develop services that anticipate and respond to patient needs, but all too often the terms and conditions of doctors get in the way of progress.”

Sir Bruce’s proposals will be put to NHS England on Tuesday.


Source: mirror

As Strike Continues in Kenya, top doctors ordered to start working weekends to help save more lives

10:56 AM Health

Woman with stomach pain is found to have a 40-year-old FETUS inside her

A Colombian woman suffering from stomach pain was found to have a 40-year-old fetus inside her. 

The 82-year-old, from Bogota, had what is known as 'lithopedion', or stone baby, when the unborn child develops outside the womb.

The woman was originally thought to be suffering from a stomach bug, NTD TV reports.

A Colombian woman suffering from stomach pain was found to have a 40-year-old fetus inside her

But an scans revealed lithopedion, where the fetus becomes calcified.There are fewer than 300 cases reported in medical literature. 

The woman will now will undergo surgery to have the fetus - mostly comprised of dead tissue - removed.

According to NTD, Dr Kemer Ramirez of Bogota's Tunjuelito Hospital said that the doctor overseeing the woman noticed something 'abnormal in her abdomen' - and suspected gallstones. 

An ultrasound showed nothing then radiography of her abdomen revealed a tumour in her abdominal cavity. 

Dr Ramirez explained: 'This happens because the fetus does not develop in the uterus because it has moved to another place. 

Dr Kemer Ramirez of Bogota's Tunjuelito Hospital (pictured) explained the woman was suffering from 'lithopedion', or stone baby, when the unborn child develops outside the womb

'In this case, the abdominal part of the woman is not a viable (place) and this is what happened, a calcified fetus because the body is generating defence mechanisms and it is calcified until it stays there encapsulated.'

The patient is thought to have been transferred to another hospital to have the lithopedion removed.

In 2009, a 92-year-old Chinese woman was found to have a 60-year-old 'stone baby' inside her.

The first reported case of lithopedion was Madame Colombe Chatri, a 68-year-old French woman.

An autopsy after her death in 1582 revealed she had been carrying a fully-developed stone baby in her abdominal cavity for 28 years.

Source: dailymail

Woman with stomach pain is found to have a 40-year-old FETUS inside her

10:36 AM Health, News

Kenya Agricultural Research Institute tries maggot therapy in wound care

The Kenya Agricultural Research Institute (Kari) has begun maggot therapy trials in wound treatment.

Dr Phoebe Mukiria from Kari Trypanosomiasis Research Center (TRC) regrets wound care in Kenya is quite expensive yet maggot therapy only involves production of the worms. “Maggot treatment is an old method of wound treatment and we are conducting principal studies withKenyatta National hospital (KNH).

“The studies are meant to establish whether the method can be adapted to reduce the burden of wound management in hospitals,” she said.

The treatment will go a long way in helping patients who sustain injuries in road accidents and those with diabetes.

Maggot Debridement Therapy (MDT) is a type of biotherapy involving introduction of live, disinfected maggots (fly larvae) into a non-healing skin and soft tissue wound(s) of a human being or animal to clean out the dead tissue.

Mukiria was speaking during the Kenya Science Journalist Congress at the Kenya Medical Research Institute headquarters in Nairobi. 

She said the treatment would reduce time taken to clean up wounds before the skin is ready for grafting.

“We hope to introduce this technology in one year and reach out to many people with wounds that are not responding to conventional wound dressing. If the trial gets approval from the KNH review committee, we will perform the trials on livestock,” said Mukiria. 

www.standardmedia.co.ke

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Kenya Agricultural Research Institute tries maggot therapy in wound care

3:54 AM Health