Sacramento, California, hospitals are leading the way in a breast-milk drive for donors

CBS Sacramento, California (Dec12,2k12)

Shortage Of Breast Milk Leads To Unique Donation Drive In Sacramento

December 10, 2012 12:38 PM

SACRAMENTO 

(CBS13) – 

A first-of-its-kind 

donation drive took

place in Sacramento  

due to a critical 

shortage of breast 

milk.

Sutter Medical Center and the Breastfeeding Coalition of Greater Sacramento are asking mothers to register to become breast milk donors for preemies in neonatal intensive care units and others.

According to the Breastfeeding Coalition of Greater Sacramento, just three ounces of breast milk is enough to feed a premature infant 9 times. The human milk is critical for premature and sick infants protecting them from devastating intestinal infections.

The breast milk will be donated to the Mothers’ Milk Bank of California, a San Jose organization that provides breast milk to 73 hospitals in 13 states.

“There is a shortage of breast milk from donors, and our hospital is one of the top purchasers of breast milk in the area,” said Kate Risingsun, R.N., the regional lactation manager at Sutter Medical Center, Sacramento. “Our care can be compromised if there isn’t enough, so we’re pleading for more.”

Interested moms can register at Sutter Medical Plaza, 1625 Stockton Boulevard until 3pm Monday.

For more details about the requirements to become a donor you can visit the Breastfeeding Coalitions’ website.

Surgeon's infected hands led to staph outbreak at presitigious Cedars of Lebanon Hospital, California

At a hospital that had participated in a research project and campaign to trace the causes and then reduce in-hospital-acquired infections during the last year or so, five patients have recently been infected by an unfocussed surgeon.  See the story at the link above, "You have to think twice about surgery in an American hospital, which produce 2 million infections each year." The final paragraph of the cited news report by CBS Minnesota / AP says, "The hospitals involved were Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles; Cleveland Clinic in Ohio; Mayo Clinic-Rochester Methodist Hospital in Rochester, Minn.; North Shore-Long Island Jewish Health System in Great Neck, NY; Northwestern Memorial Hospital in Chicago; OSF Saint Francis Medical Center in Peoria, Ill.; and Stanford Hospital & Clinics in Palo Alto, Calif."  Even so, as the law firms that used to be called "ambulance chasers" are already urgently advertizing for people who want to particpate in law suits against Cedars-Sinai Medical Centre, it remains a very good hospital.  It takes only one careless or deviant surgeon to bring down the reputation of an otherwise excellent hospital, by all accounts but today's.


-- Albert Gedraitis

NBC Southern California (Dec10,2k12)

Five patients at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center became 

infected after a heart surgeon operated 

with an inflammation on his hands

by Sharon Bernstein

|  Monday, Dec 10, 2012  |  Updated 12:06 PM PST

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Five heart patients at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center contracted staph infections after a doctor 

operated on them with bacteria on his hands, the hospital said this week.

The doctor, whom the hospital declined to name, had an inflammation on his hand when he implanted replacement heart valves into five patients last June.

He wore gloves, but they developed microscopic tears, the hospital said, causing the infection to pass to patients.

All five became infected with the staphylococcus epidermidis bacteria, the hospital said.

“We have apologized to the patients involved, worked diligently to answer any questions they have, and provided appropriate follow-up, support and monitoring,” a spokesman for the hospital said in a statement Sunday.

The physician involved remains on the hospital’s medical staff, but is no longer performing surgeries, the hospital said.

Hospital officials are refusing to release any more information about the case, or to provide historical details on infections at the storied medical center.

Brilliant clinical trial works for 7-yr old with elusive type of cancer, Children's Hospital of Philadelphia and University of Pennsylvania research medicos

Daily Mail London England UK (December 11, 2k12)

The cancer girl cured by the HIV virus: Seven-year-old makes extraordinary recovery after U.S. doctors re-wire her immune system to destroy leukaemia cells

• Emily had been fighting leukaemia for two years but relapsed this spring
• 
  
• Her parents put her forward for a clinical trial as it was 'the only option left'
• 
  
• 'We had 48 hours to make a decision or Emily could have started having organ failure', father said
• 
  
• Therapy, known as CTL019, used disabled form of HIV to reprogramme her immune system to kill cancer cells
• 
  

by CLAIRE BATES

PUBLISHED: 11:32 GMT, 11 December 2012 | UPDATED: 18:50 GMT, 11 December 2012

In April this year, Emily Whitehead's family had almost given up hope.

The brave six-year-old had been fighting leukaemia for two years, only to relapse for a second time during intensive chemotherapy treatment in February. 

Doctors had exhausted all the traditional treatments as Emily could not remain in remission for long enough to attempt a bone marrow transplant. So her desperate parents, Kari and Tom, started looking at more radical options.

Scroll down for videos...

Fighting fit: Emily (seen left during treatment in April) has now been in remission from cancer for seven months

Big hugs: Emily was diagnosed with acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) in May 2010

'We made the decision that we needed to go somewhere else,' said Mrs Whitehead.

'We needed to try something new, different and cutting-edge.'

So they turned to the Cancer Center at The Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, which is involved in testing a pioneering new therapy.

Alzheimer risk can increase due to loneliness, Dutch study says

The VU Medical Center in Amsterdam has just released a study that confirms the association of subjective factors — namely, loneliness — with increased risk of dementia, Alzheimer's disease in the elderly.

— Albert Gedraitis



The Independent London England UK (Dec11,2k12)

Loneliness 'can increase Alzheimer's risk'

JOHN VON RADOWITZ

TUESDAY 11 DECEMBER 2012

Feeling lonely can increase the risk of Alzheimer's in later life, a study suggests.

Researchers who found the link drew a distinction between being alone and loneliness.

The Amsterdam Study of the Elderly (Amstel) looked at risk factors for depression, dementia and high death rates among 2,000 men and women aged 65 and older.

Participants who felt lonely were more than twice as likely to develop Alzheimer's and other forms of dementia over three years as those who did not.

When influential factors including mental and physical health were taken into account, loneliness was still associated with a 64% increased risk of the disease.

But other aspects of social isolation, such as living alone and being widowed, had no impact.

At the start of the Dutch study, 46% of participants were living alone and half were single or no longer married. About one in five, just under 20%, said they felt lonely.

The findings were reported today in the Journal of Neurology, Neurosurgery & Psychiatry.

The authors, led by Dr Tjalling Jan Holwerda, from VU University Medical Centre in Amsterdam, wrote: "These results suggest that feelings of loneliness independently contribute to the risk of dementia in later life.

"Interestingly, the fact that 'feeling lonely' rather than 'being alone' was associated with dementia onset suggests that it is not the objective situation, but, rather, the perceived absence of social attachments that increases the risk of cognitive decline."

The researchers speculated that loneliness may be an effect of early dementia rather than its cause.

"We hypothesise that feelings of loneliness may.. be considered a manifestation of the deteriorating social skills that are seen as part of the personality change accompanying the process of dementia," they wrote.

Another possibility was that loneliness signified extra sensitivity to distress, which is a known risk factor for the development of Alzheimer's disease.

British expert Professor John Bond, from the University of Newcastle, said: "This is not the first paper to be published on this subject.

"However, this is a soundly-conducted study and an important confirmation of the association."

Jessica Smith, research officer at the Alzheimer's Society, said: "As Christmas approaches, many of us are looking forward to full houses and festive parties. However, for others it can be a time that can really heighten loneliness. As this study suggests, feeling lonely could have close links to dementia.

"More research is needed to determine whether it is a risk factor or in fact an early symptom. There is strong evidence to suggest that the best way to reduce your risk of dementia is by regularly exercising, eating a diet rich in fruit and vegetables and not smoking."

In the UK, care-home owners and directors now can be made criminally responsible for the abuse of elders

This coud be me.  I don't want to end up in a care home, wharehoused at the "tender mercies" of people who don't know me but will profile me to gain deadlock control over me.  Before my organs or my mind, which ever goes first, have failed, I want the choice of Death with Dignity in my own home at a time of my own choosing.  I have no close family who will be distrawt when I die.  Why shoudn't I have my choice in this regard?

— Albert Gedraitis



The Independent London England UK (Dec10,2k12)

Care home directors and owners to be made criminally liable for abuse

The new plans could lead to fines – or even prison sentences – for directors who fail to safeguard vulnerable patients in homes which they run

OLIVER WRIGHT 

 

 

MONDAY 10 DECEMBER 2012

Directors and owners of companies which run care and nursing homes face being held criminally liable for any abuses that take place there, the Government has announced.

The new plans, due to be published in the New Year, could lead to fines – or even prison sentences – for directors who fail to safeguard vulnerable patients in  homes which they run.

The move comes as a response to the scandal at Winterbourne View – where dozens of patients with learning disabilities suffered years of abuse at the hands of violent carers in the privately run home.

The abuse only came to light after Panorama reporter secretly recorded residents being slapped, soaked in water, trapped under chairs, taunted, sworn at and having their hair pulled and eyes poked. Almost all of the patients at Winterbourne had been sent there by the NHS.

Six members of staff were jail for their part in what a judge condemned as a ‘scandalous culture of cruelty’ but the directors of Castlebeck, owners of the 26-bed unit, that was paid an average of £3,500 a week for each patient were not criminally sanctioned.

The Health Minister Norman Lamb said his department was drawing up new plans to strengthen corporate accountability of similar care homes – including nursing homes for the elderly.

“When you look at Winterbourne View the people who committed the abuse and the assaults were convicted but what about the people who were making the money from that company and the board who were representing that company?” he said.

“We need to have a situation where people who run the care homes in the public sector or private sector know that they are accountable for the services that the provide and that there are consequences if they don’t.

“So next spring we will announce proposals to address the gap in the law on effective corporate accountability.”

He added that they would be looking at both changes to criminal law and ensuring that directors of companies that had been censured in the past could be banned from running similar companies in the future.

The minister's remarks were made as the Government unveiled plans to move every person with a learning disability such as autism out of long stay hospital care and into residential settings.

Under the plans, the cases of all patients in current placements will be reviewed by June next year with a view to placing anyone being treated “inappropriately” in hospital into community-based support by June 2014.

There are currently 3,400 people in NHS-funded learning disability inpatient beds of which around 1,200 are in assessment and treatment units.

“A moment has come in my view when one has to recognise that we need a complete culture change,” Mr Lamb said. 

“I want this to be seen as a moment when there is a collective view that there needs to be a substantial culture change in society, that people with learning disabilities have the same rights as anybody else, and that we cannot any longer tolerate inappropriate care or treatment for these people 

“I take the view that there is a national imperative that things have to change.”

Mr Lamb said that he did not believe this was a case where getting the system right required additional money.

He pointed out that the cost of placing patients in Winterbourne View was no cheaper than looking after them more effectively and safely either in their own homes or the local community.

Iranian pastor, suffering injuries from guards and inmates, unhygenic conditions, left untreated medically to kill him as an apostate

That medicine and the denial of treatment are tools of the state, not least of all in Iran, is a horror to the conscience of the worl, and the exact opposite of Christian medical values and norms.  We need a robust worldwide revitalization of our calling as a community to train medical doctors and send them out into today's world to care for those suffering, needing medical help, without trained physicians, nurses, anesthesiologists, and others specialities.  Pray for pastor Bahnam Irani.

— Albert Gedraitis

Iran said to be 

killing imprisoned pastor 

by medical neglect

Denial of medical aid aimed at Behnam Irani succumbing to violence-related illness, sources say.

December 7, 2012 By Istanbul Correspondent - Leave a Comment

Pastor Behnam Irani, before the ravages of prison. (Present Truth Ministries photo)

ISTANBUL (Morning Star News) – The condition of an Iranian pastor languishing in prison on charges of “actions against the Islamic state” is deteriorating as authorities intend to kill him by denying him medical treatment, according to sources close to the prisoner.

The sources say the health of pastor Behnam Irani, a married father of two, is deteriorating rapidly, according to Jason DeMars of Present Truth Ministries (PTM).

“The prison scheduled a time for him to have surgery several months ago, but mysteriously this decision was reversed, and he was not allowed to receive medical attention,” DeMars told Morning Star News. “Those close to the case believe this is a deliberate attempt to bring about the conditions so that Pastor Behnam would die in prison as a result of his sickness.”

Due to injuries sustained from brutal beatings by prison guards and other inmates, Irani has suffered acute stomach ulcers and colon complications, resulting in weight loss, severe bleeding, and a blood infection, according to a November report by Christian Solidarity Worldwide (CSW).

Another aid agency, Release International, reported yesterday (Dec. 6) that Irani has been vomiting and is unable to speak.

In January 2011 Irani was sentenced to a year in prison in Ghezal Hesar, a notoriously violent prison, for alleged “actions against national security” – leading house-church worship, according to PTM. He had previously been arrested in 2006 for “actions against national security” and received a suspended five-year sentence in 2008, but in October 2011 a judge ordered him to serve the sentence in prison due to charges of leading a house-church service.

A further danger to Irani is that the judge declared him an apostate from Islam, a verdict that could bring the death penalty. Sources close to the case have told aid agencies that officials are intentionally denying him treatment so that he will die from his injuries.

With his illnesses, he may not survive the duration of his prison sentence, according to the CSW report.

“He may not survive another five years, which is the remaining time of his sentence for trumped-up charges of ‘action against national security,’” the report states. “If he does not get the medical treatment he needs soon, he may die in prison.”

Ghezal Hesar, 20 kilometers (12 miles) northwest of Tehran, houses the nation’s most violent criminals and puts them in cells along with regime critics. Prison staff members frequently engage in torture and physical abuse of inmates, deny them access to medical care and leave them in completely unhygienic conditions, the International Society for Human Rights said in a recent report. In March 2011, the prison made headlines when 14 people were killed and 33 wounded during a prison revolt.

Irani has fought legal charges against his pastoral activities for several years. Following his original 2006 arrest and his five-year suspended sentence – in which he was out of prison but on probation – security agents assaulted him in April 2010 for leading a house-church service.

He was then incarcerated for two months in 2010 before being released on bail, and the January 2011 conviction and sentencing followed. In May 2011 he turned himself in, and following a failed appeal in October 2011, a judge ordered that he also serve out his once-suspended, five-year sentence in prison for alleged anti-state activities and “apostasy,” or leaving Islam, according to PTM.

PTM has released a letter that Irani wrote from prison in October. In it he describes his hardships in prison, encounters with fellow prisoners and personal conviction to extend love to them unconditionally.

“In jail I have attained new experiences about love, I realized,” he wrote. “Here, I live with cellmates that you can hardly see something positive in their lives and personalities. They don’t think about anything but negative values, abhorrent acts, learning new experiences in crimes and nasty literature.

“[But] immediately, I remember that Jesus Christ was sacrificed for their sins too. I become weary of myself for being unable to reflect this love to the darkness of my surroundings.”
The pastor’s difficulties come at a time of a severe crackdown on Christians in Iran, which aid and advocacy organization International Christian Concern has dubbed a “massive campaign targeting house churches.” Christian blogger Alireza Ebrahimi was arrested in November in the northern city of Gorgan. One month earlier, nine Christians from a house church in the southern city of Shiraz were arrested.

Irani has been a pastor for a decade and a Christian for 20 years.
An estimated 100,000 Christian converts practice their faith underground in Iran, a self-proclaimed Islamic theocratic state since its 1979 revolution. Charges against converts from Islam to Christianity are often treated by courts as anti-state activities.

###

© 2012 Morning Star News. Articles may be reprinted with credit to Morning Star News. 

Morning Star News is a 501(c)(3) non-profit corporation whose mission is to inform those in the free world and in countries violating religious freedom about Christians worldwide who are persecuted for their faith. For free subscription or to make tax-deductible donations, contacteditor@morningstarnews.org, or send check to Morning Star News, 24310 Moulton Parkway, Suite O # 157, Laguna Hills, CA 92637, USA. 

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