Phoebe Moloney
Published: January 9, 2016 – 12:15AM

Breagha Patterson of Goulburn is living on the frontline of a medical breakthrough.

Last July, the 21-year-old was diagnosed with end-stage heart failure, and it was unlikely she would survive long enough to find a heart donor for a transplant.

It was a situation her family had experienced before.

Ms Patterson’s younger sister, Isla, started showing symptoms of heart failure in 2013 while the Patterson family were holidaying in Scotland.

She did not have access to a heart pump called the HVAD, that continues the circulation of blood around the body while the patient waits for a heart transplant.

Eventually, Isla underwent the HVAD implant procedure but was too weak to survive, and died at the age of 17.

Upon returning to Australia, Breagha Patterson was diagnosed with the same hereditary heart disease as her sister.

“Breagha had quite advanced cardiomyopathy,” said her mother, Maggie Patterson. “It was just that she had a young body which was compensating to hide the symptoms.”

By July last year, Ms Patterson couldn’t walk up stairs or sleep on her back. “Her heart could have stopped at any moment,” her mother said.

Rather than accept an HVAD implant, Ms Patterson decided to take part in a medical trial being conducted a St Vincent’s Hospital Sydney of a new pump, the MVAD, which is roughly a third of the size of the former device.

She was the first person in Australia and the third in the world to receive the implant.

“As a research study, we are never sure of the outcome,” said Ms Patterson’s surgeon, Dr Christopher Hayward. “But we were confident in the technology and preliminary pre-clinical studies.”

HeartWare, the American company that makes both the HVAD and MVAD, expects the smaller size of the device will allow it to cater to a larger number of end-stage heart failure patients because it involves a less invasive implant procedure.

Its trial will be considered a success if the device functions correctly for two years.

Six months in and Ms Patterson has had no issues and is feeling much better.

“Right now I am just working on my fitness and enjoying my health,” she said. “I am playing table tennis, practising walking up the stairs and the driveway. Dad says I am walking too quickly now!”

Ms Patterson’s heart pump is powered by a battery pack that sits on her waist and must be recharged every 10 hours. The battery is connected to the MVAD through a cord that passes through her skin under her ribcage.

Because her blood is pumped by a small impeller that spins continuously, she does not have a readable pulse.

“It’s not as much of a big deal as you might think,” Ms Patterson said.

“I think some people find it confronting because it reminds them of their own mortality. I just try to act like a normal person, which I think is the right thing to do.”

She says her health issues have taught her to appreciate her life and family.

“It sounds cheesy, but it’s true,” she said. “Also, the kindness of others. Every time I visit Level 10 of St Vincent’s Hospital, the staff run up and hug me.”

Ms Patterson says she is excited that more people could have access to the MVAD implant in the future.

“Isla didn’t have this opportunity. Breagha has been given the opportunity to choose life,” her mother said.

A nice article, hopefully this all goes well for the young lady. If you want to learnn more about the heart and how it works, how to complete CPR and use a defibrillator make sure you come to a first aid course.

Definitely important to keep the kids safe at this time of the year. Doing any first aid course is going to give you the most important and basic skills. Come and join us at Canberra First Aid for a great first aid training package which is nationally recognised. We cover all parts of first aid from asthma to bites and stings and everything in between.  

Posted 27 Dec 2015, 4:03pm

The City of Sydney said the booths would have trained Salvation Army volunteers administering basic first aid when needed.

They will also provide people with phone and internet access if they need to connect with friends or family in order to get home safely.

It is an extension of a scheme that started last New Year’s Eve and has continued to operate at Town Hall and Kings Cross every weekend since then.

Nate Brown from the Salvation Army is leading the initiative and said there would be 50 volunteers involved, with some roving throughout the city seeking out revellers who looked like they needed help.

The booths will operate around Circular Quay, The Rocks, Town Hall, Darling Harbour and Kings Cross.

Help for people who look ‘worse for wear’

“Revellers can come and get directions about transport or receive first aid, water or a bit of sugar in the form of Chuppa Chups, or some help to get home safely,” Mr Brown said.

“It’s definitely a big night for a lot of people, and some can end up pretty worse for wear.

“If they have lost contact with their friends or their phones have died, we can help them with phone and internet access to help them reconnect with friends or family.”

He said last year there were half a dozen instances where revellers needed to be taken to hospital emergency departments for treatment.

“We were flat out last, there were so many people in the city and our volunteers were really busy until about four o’ clock in the morning,” he added.

Mr Brown also said volunteers were trained in dealing with aggression and trying to defuse potentially violent situations.

“Most people out here really enjoy themselves but unfortunately you get some people who get a bit of drink in the system and they get aggressive,” he said.

“We want to make sure those situations are resolved really quickly without anyone getting hurt.”

‘Sensational’ plans for Sydney

Sydney New Year’s Eve director Aneurin Coffey said plans were on track for a “sensational” fireworks display for the city.

“The weather is looking good and we started loading up the bridge with fireworks last night,” he said.

“It will be the biggest display ever on the harbour bridge with an extra 2,500 effects,” he said. “So keep an eye on the bridge, it will look spectacular.”

He said the cost of this year’s celebrations was $7 million, but described it as “money well spent” because it would generate more than $130 million for the state economy in the form of tourism spin-offs.

Great work from these first aid volunteers over the new years eve festivals. The good news is that this is occuring in all states. You too could be a first aid volunteer at events. Sing up now to get some first aid training in Canberra with Canberra First Aid.

A FIRST aid course could save a life according to Red Cross and that life could be a young child.

Children and young adults are particularly at risk toddlers under four account for one in 10 drowning fatalities and young people from 15 to 24 account for 15%, knowing the basics of first aid can save lives according to Red Cross.

Ensure children are supervised when they go into the water even if they are strong swimmers, do not enter the water if someone appears to be drowning unless you are specifically trained, follow the basic life support procedure and do not endanger yourself, always call ‘000’ at the first opportunity to make sure help arrives as soon as possible.

A single day of training could potentially save the life of a friend or family member this summer and Red Cross offers a wide range of training courses in every state and territory. First aid trainer Anthony Cameron believes at least one person in every household should know first aid.

“First aid training is something you should do for the people you love.”

“Having the skills and confidence to react and respond correctly in an emergency can minimise the impact of an injury, assist with recovery and even save a life, it means you can relax a little more this summer.”

The funds generated from first aid training support the everyday work of Red Cross such as providing breakfast for school children who might otherwise go to school hungry, a daily phone call to check on the welfare of an elderly person living alone or clean water for families from remote villages in Myanmar and Timor-Leste.

To reserve a place at the next Red Cross first aid course in your area or to purchase a Red Cross first aid kit online go to redcross.org.au/firstaid or call 1300 367 428.

All the statistics show that having a first aid course is well and truly worthwhile. 20 years ago everyone did a course so that they had the skills to help however now it is mostly people attending for work purposes. Make sure you are trained by completing a first aid course now.

Katie Burgess
Published: December 29, 2015 – 12:20PM

There are few investments you’ll make as valuable as one in a first aid certificate, Brad Lovelock says.

The public servant was one of the first responders to a crash on Horse Park Drive in Canberra’s north last Tuesday, where a 27-year-old man was thrown from his ute after tumbling over an embankment.

Mr Lovelock didn’t witness the accident but was driving home when he came across the aftermath.

“Ten people were already there attending to the person. He was in a pretty bad state. Physically it was pretty hard to tell how much damage he’d done to himself,” he said.

Although somebody had covered the man in a foil blanket from a mobile medical kit, Mr Lovelock was the first on the scene who had trained in emergency medical assistance.

“I almost just drove past due to the fact there were so many people standing around, they normally say ‘don’t rubberneck or stop and create more fuss’ but it’s probably lucky that I did for the fact that no one else had [training].”

It was the first time the weekend swimming teacher had to put his first aid skills into play in such a major way.

“There’s obviously been other times where I’ve had to use my first aid training, when someone’s fallen off a bike or stumbled when walking around but nothing to the extent of a car crash,” Mr Lovelock said.

“It wasn’t as confronting as it might have been I guess, I probably have an ability to switch off and not really think about the damage, it’s more about focusing on what I had to do to make sure he stayed alive.”

As the patient was quite agitated, Mr Lovelock understood the apprehension of other first responders to assist but it made him reflect on the value of his first aid training.

“It was an interesting situation having that many people standing, looking but no one able to actually do anything.The fact that 10 people can be standing there and not one of them knows first aid, it’s definitely a skill most people should get or have,” he said.

This number was of no surprise to St John Ambulance Australia chairman Mark Compton.

While St John Ambulance trains about 600,000 people a year in first aid, Mr Compton said it’s not enough.

“If someone falls victim to cardiac arrest in a shopping centre they need someone to commence CPR within one or two minutes. Within three to five minutes they need defibrillation and early on they need someone calling triple-0.

“To meet these minimum standards, they need people around them trained in first aid. Seconds count.”

The organisation is pressuring the Federal Government to make first aid a mandatory part of learner driver training.

“We think it’s integral as drivers are often the first ones on the scene [of a major crash]. If someone has an obstruction in their airways or a major bleed, having someone on the spot who can manage that can make a huge difference for that person,” Mr Compton said.

And while it helps to know what you’re doing in case you chance upon a serious road accident, Mr Compton said the lives you’re most likely to be saving are those deeply entwined with yours.

“Most incidents where first aid needs to be used is with family or friends, a heart attack at the dinner table or a child at the bottom of the pool. First aid training is not difficult and is relatively easy to access and is a worthwhile investment in someone’s life.”

Or as Mr Lovelock put it: “It’s too valuable not to have.”

This story was found at: http://www.canberratimes.com.au/act-news/roadside-responder-to-canberra-crash-says-more-people-need-to-learn-first-aid-20151229-glvla2.html

Here here, nowhere near enough people are trained in our local Canberra community. If something happens to you it is going to be great that someone close by has done a first aid course in Canberra. They are going to be the difference in life or death. Make sure you book in to at least a basic first aid course in Canberra so that you can help. Contact us so that you can be trained up. We have classes every week so that you can take part in a first aid course in Canberra as soon as possible. Book now.

Cameron Atfield
Published: January 3, 2016 – 3:24PM

A team of detectives is scouring CCTV footage for four men believed to be responsible for an attack on a teenager that left him fighting for life in a Brisbane intensive care unit.

The 18-year-old man, from Highgate Hill, was walking towards Ann Street with a friend in the Chinatown Mall about 3.35am on Sunday when they were approached by the men.

It was one of two serious assaults in the Fortitude Valley entertainment precinct in the early hours of Sunday.

Detective Acting Inspector Tom Armitt said one of the men, described as Pacific islander in appearance and in his 20s, punched the teenager in what he described as a “random act of violence”.

“A short exchange has occurred and the victim was struck to the back of the head, has fallen forward and is currently in his present condition,” he said.

The young man’s condition was listed as critical in the Royal Brisbane and Women’s Hospital.

“We’ve got a young, 18-year-old man who’s fighting for his life,” Acting Inspector Armitt said.

“You obviously feel for that person, you feel for his family, but as far as police are concerned we’ll do our job as professionally as we can.”

Acting Inspector Armitt said a team of about 20 detectives was investigating the attack and there had been no suggestion the victim knew anybody in the group of men.

He said investigators were keeping an “open mind” about whether their paths had crossed earlier in the night.

Acting Inspector Armitt said the victim and his friend, a young man of a similar age, were wrapping up their night on the town.

“He was a young man who had been out for a night on the town, hadn’t caused any issues or any concerns,” he said.

“He was walking through the mall with the intent of catching a cab.”

Fortitude Valley, as with most CBD entertainment precincts, was well serviced by Brisbane City Council’s CitySafe cameras.

Acting Inspector Armitt said those cameras could prove crucial in the police investigation.

Police were confident there were no links between the attack and another incident at the nearby TBC club on Brunswick Street, an hour earlier at 2.35am, in which a 24-year-old Beenleigh man was attacked as he sat in a chair.

Acting Superintendent Peter Aitken said the man was struck across the face with a ceramic mug, but suffered only minor injuries.

“These are very isolated incidents, the two that have occurred today, and we have a lot of police conducting controls of these areas enforcing all the offences that may occur,” he said.

People with information about either assault were asked to contact Crime Stoppers on 1800 333 000.

CORRECTION: A previous version of this story incorrectly stated the 18-year-old victim was from Holland Park rather than the correct Highgate Hill.

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This story was found at: http://www.smh.com.au/queensland/police-hunt-for-four-men-after-coward-punch-leaves-teenager-clinging-to-life-20160103-glydbs.html

Book yourself in to a first aid course in Canberra now so that you know what to do in an emergency. Being confident and able to call triple 0 in the correct situation is very important so that the ambulance, fire and police can arrive fast to help. Contact Canberra First Aid soon and book a course.

Ketaki Gokhale
Published: January 3, 2016 – 12:27PM

Outsiders don’t want their daughters to marry any local boys, according to the village elders swapping stories in a tailor’s shop behind the Sikh temple, because most residents are infected with “black jaundice”.

That’s what they call hepatitis C, which is so common in parts of India’s Punjab state that the tailor-shop gossips might not be off base in their estimate. But prevalence could be something of an advantage these days.

Drugmakers have made the village of Lande Rode one of the theatres in a battle to grab market share for sofosbuvir, a miracle cure that Gilead Sciences sells in the US as Sovaldi at a retail price of $US1000 ($1200) a pill. Gilead licensed 11 Indian companies to make generic versions, and they sealed marketing deals with others. Competition has been so fierce it’s driven down the cost and spurred thousands to be tested.

Manufacturers “want more and more patients” and are willing to wheel and deal on price, said Nirmaljeet Malhi, a gastroenterologist at Apollo Hospitals in Ludhiana, about 200km from Lande Rode. “If one agrees to it, the others will also have to. It’s a race where one cannot say no – because then they’re going to lose the business.”

The companies sponsor screening drives, hand out free test kits to hospitals and offer bulk discounts to entire villages. Sofosbuvir was cheap by almost any standard when it hit the market in Punjab at $US10 ($12) in March. Then the cost kept dropping, to as low as $US4.29, and doctors predict it will continue to fall.

That’s in contrast to the situation in the US, where Gilead set off a firestorm in December 2013 by listing Sovaldi at $US84,000 ($116,200) for a 12-week course regimen.

It’s a game-changing drug, often wiping out an infection in three months, and without the debilitating side effects of earlier treatments that took longer. Still, the cost started the latest backlash over high medicine prices. Dozens of state Medicaid plans limited access to the drug, and a US Senate report chastised the company. Gilead, which has said it priced Sovaldi responsibly and thoughtfully, is giving insurers and bulk purchasers discounts.

The same drug is available on the pharmaceutical benefits scheme in Australia, costing taxpayers tens of millions of dollars.

Like others in the industry, Gilead arranges to make life-saving cures available in some parts of the world for far less; laws and pressure introduced so-called tiered pricing after expensive anti-HIV treatments became available in the 90s and reduced deaths in rich countries and not poor ones. In exchange for a 7 per cent cut of sales, Gilead gave companies including Mylan, Cipla and Natco Pharma rights to make generics for distribution in 101 developing nations where hepatitis C is often untreated and $US1000 is more than people might earn in a year. The company wants to “foster competition in the marketplace” in low-income areas, according to spokesman Nathan Kaiser.

Now there are more than a dozen sofosbuvir versions for sale in India. “The market has become highly competitive in the last six months with close to 20 companies launching their own,” said MV Ramana, executive vice president and head of branded markets at Dr Reddy’s Laboratories.

The sofosbuvir rivals are aggressive about expanding the customer base by making the pills affordable and diagnosis easier. Dr Reddy’s, for example, set up a venture with lender Arogya Finance to offer no-interest loans for patients, and Abbott Laboratories worked with French medical equipment company Echosens SAS to supply Indian hospitals with 13 ultrasound machines that determine the level of fibrosis, or hardening, without a liver biopsy.

A main benefit of the competition, according to doctors, is that so many are being tested for hepatitis C, which can lead to cirrhosis and liver cancer. As many as 150 million people have the disease, according to the World Health Organisation, including at least 12 million in India. Common modes of transmission are tainted medical equipment and reuse of syringes.

Some of the highest infection rates are in Lande Rode and other villages of Punjab’s cotton-growing Malwa belt, where 30 per cent to 50 per cent of the population might have the virus, said Gagandeep Goyal, a gastroenterologist at Global Healthcare, a hospital sandwiched between an Adidas store and a Vodafone outlet in Bathinda, the fifth-largest city in Punjab.

There are expenses beyond the drug itself. Villagers are encouraged to go to hospitals in cities for exams to determine the amount of virus in the blood and the exact strain, and scans to see the amount of scarring on the liver. At Malhi’s hospital the charge for a liver scan is 3500 rupees ($72.40).

Malhi said pharmaceutical companies might be persuaded to help defray these costs too. “If bulk treatment is required – say, in a village where 200 people are positive – they might give more favourable pricing to that village for complete treatment,” he said. As for the drug itself, he said, if he tests 20,000 people and finds 2000 infected, he might be able to negotiate to get the cost of a 12-week course reduced by a third to $US1000.

“Where in the US, you get one pill, here you get an entire treatment,” he said. “People in these villages can afford this – possibly everybody can.”

The disease is a topic of conversation for the elders at the tailor’s shop in Lande Rode, a cluster of concrete houses dotting dirt roads and surrounded by rice and wheat fields. Baldev Singh, a farmer and official of the Sikh temple, said he reckoned 80 per cent of the village is infected.

Singh’s family is like many. He was successfully treated with interferon injections last year, before the antiviral pill was available. He looks older than his 45 years, his beard fully gray and his eyes hidden behind sunglasses, even inside the tailor’s dimly lit shop.

His wife, brother and 16-year-old nephew have hepatitis C; the nephew is taking sofosbuvir financed by a loan. But Singh hasn’t had his teenage sons tested yet – and his wife takes an Ayurvedic medicine made whose ingredients include capers and wild chicory. Singh said he thinks her viral count is too low to warrant the expense of generic Sovaldi.

“And anyway,” he said, “the price is supposed to come down a little more, right?”

The Washington Post

This story was found at: http://www.smh.com.au/business/the-drug-that-costs-more-than-1200-and-sells-for-5-in-india-20160103-glya8a.html

Scary to think that this is going on. We know many families that go through the pain of paying for medical supplies. Hopefully the Australian Government helps with these issues in Australia. Learn about blood born virus such as hepatitis in our first aid course in Canberra and how to minimise the chance of infection whilst helping people.