health

The Guardian • health

Issue #2023

Striking Kaiser mental health clinicians joined by colleagues in Hawaii

Over 2,000 striking mental health clinicians hit the picket lines in front of Kaiser Permanente facilities in northern California and the Central Valley on the...

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Issue #1953

Peter Dutton continues to abuse the rights of refugees to healthcare

The Minister for Home Affairs Peter Dutton has once again shown his utter disregard for the health and wellbeing of refugees and asylum seekers.

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Issue #1972

Study reveals shocking decline in life expectancy in the US

The United States life expectancy fell by more than a year, from 78.8 years to 77.3 years, during the first half of 2020.

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Medical pills. Issue #2069

Big pharma not working

The big pharmaceutical monopolies’ profit-driven model of making medicines is bad for our health. While in theory these companies exist to make the medicines we...

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Issue #2021

Public sector alliance rally – WA

In Western Australia there has been a campaign of industrial activity over the past six weeks by more than ten trade unions who make up...

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Issue #1953

Socialist and capitalist response to COVID-19 and vaccinations

Now more than ever is probably a good time to look at the difference in responses between socialist and capitalist countries

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Issue #1993

Distractions

Under the cloak of the global pandemic, the US military-industrial complex is gleefully organising another war to rescue capitalism. The propaganda machine has certainly made...

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Issue #2022

Cuba’s day of liberation celebrated in Sydney

On 26th July 26 1959 an armed force led by Fidel Castro stormed the Moncada Barracks in Cuba, leading to the liberation of the Cuban...

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A person in festive costume, Carazo, Nicaragua. Issue #2065

Nicaragua: the path to independence

The years under neo-liberalism in Nicaragua saw trade union rights stripped away, collective bargaining agreements junked and, as trade union strength waned, living standards plummeted....

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Issue #2018

Public sector health services workers make a stand – WA

As part of the campaign by public sector workers in Western Australia, members of the Health Services Union and United Workers Union – the two...

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Issue #1973

No politicisation of COVID origin tracing

As COVID-19 continues to wreak havoc across the globe, the current situation is still grave.

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Issue #1953

The Aged Scare industry: how privatisation leads to suffering and death

Horrifying stories of neglect, abuse and poor treatment of elderly people in Aged Care facilities and homes across Australia have been exposed

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Issue #2022

The 2022 Tibet Think Tank Forum

On 26th August this year, I participated in the China Tibet Think Tank International Forum, hosted by the Institute of Tibet Studies in Beijing. It...

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Issue #2002

A matter of life or death

On 31st March, thousands of nurses and midwives took strike action across NSW, with many walking off the job for 24-hours from 7 AM, over...

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Issue #1989

Health care a right, not a privilege

The Liberal-National Coalition has never supported Medicare, constantly undermining it since its introduction.

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Issue #1994

The challenge of dealing with COVID-19

In the world of the 24-hour news cycle, we are being bombarded with information overload. The mass media move from picking at one warped point...

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Issue #2000

Sick Pay Guarantee a step in the right direction

The Victorian government has recently launched a Sick Pay Guarantee pilot program for casual workers. Under the scheme, casuals and contract workers in certain industries...

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Issue #2002

Fight for public health and workplace safety rally – Melbourne

CPA Victorian Branch comrades marched to and attended the Fight for Public Health and Workplace Safety rally on Saturday 19th March at Melbourne’s State Library....

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Issue #2029

Anti-poverty protest – Adelaide

Poverty is about people struggling, and becoming sick, less employable and ultimately homeless, especially if survival on “jobseeker” is involved. These were the stories of...

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Issue #1978

Aged care workers expose industry’s dirty secrets

After years of Federal Government inaction on aged care, aged care workers are speaking out to expose the daily understaffing and safety risks facing older Australians across the country.

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Issue #1960

ANMF launches new national aged care campaign: “It’s not too much”

  The Australian Nursing and Midwifery Federation (ANMF) has launched its new national campaign aimed at ensuring that aged care is a priority in the...

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Issue #1965

ACTU calls on government to save lives and support a waiver on vaccine patents

Australia is just one of twelve countries stopping a waiver on patents for COVID-19 products which would allow developing countries to manufacture COVID-19 vaccines and treatments.

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Issue #2020

DINGO

Banks and insurance companies raked in billions according to financial year end of interim results, with CEO pay increasing by tens of millions of dollars....

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Issue #2033

DINGO

In a massive escalation of the simmering industrial conflict being waged by Svitzer Towage’s Australian management against local tugboat crew, the company gave notice that...

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Issue #2038

DINGO

As the Albanese government pours billions of dollars of taxpayers’ money into fuelling the war in Ukraine it is offering the fossil fuel miners $500...

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Issue #1980

Government closes loophole on e-cigarettes

Changes to the law on 1st October will make it illegal to possess or import an e-cigarette (or “vape”) containing liquid nicotine without a prescription.

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Issue #1991

Year in review

2021 has been a year that has intensified the elements of the class struggle we have been experiencing since the pandemic arrived in Australia in 2020.

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Issue #2046

GLOBAL BRIEFS

HONDURAS: The President of Honduras has announced that the country will seek to establish diplomatic relations with mainland China instead of Taiwan. The Foreign Minister...

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Issue #1997

On the formation of the CPA Logistics and Manufacturing Branch

The Communist Party of Australia Logistics and Manufacturing Branch is proud to announce its formation. We are an industry-based branch of the Communist Party of...

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Issue #2028

A big short: Australia’s manufactured skills shortage

The National Skills Commission has revealed in its 2022 Skills Priority List Key Finding Report, that 286 occupations were dealing with shortages at a national...

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Issue #2031

The legacy of asbestos mining at Wittenoom

“If the sugar refining company won’t come to my rescue/Who’s going to save me?” So goes the song Blue Sky Mine by Australian band Midnight...

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Issue #2014

DINGO

While the Prime Minister was talking trade deals with the European Commission, who should pop up but Simon Crean, former ACTU President and erstwhile leader...

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Issue #2032

A peace & peoples’ budget

Annual budgets are a mirror held up to the class divide. The income and expenditure sides of the budget come down to priorities. The budget...

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Issue #2028

Bed block

“We are not excelling, we are drowning.” This is the headline of the NSW branch of the Australian Paramedics Association’s (APA) submission to the NSW...

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Issue #1974

The people will not be silenced – COVID needs a social response

Our governments want us to accept the failures of their pandemic response as just chance events, bad luck or someone’s personal fate.

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Issue #1976

Breast screening not seen as an essential service

Earlier this month, BreastScreen mammogram appointments across New South Wales and the Australian Capital Territory have been postponed as centres have closed due to the Coronavirus outbreak.

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Issue #1966

The destruction of Medicare by stealth

Without warning, the government announced changes to more than 900 Medicare rebates, mostly in private hospitals, to commence 1st July.

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Issue #1972

Ideology before health

The COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted the failures of capitalism and its neoliberal policies.

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Issue #2064

GREEN NOTES

Over 900 health professionals from across the country have signed a joint letter speaking out against fracking the Beetaloo Basin and the Middle Arm gas...

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Issue #1976

Covid crisis in outback NSW: Indigenous communities at risk

The COVID crisis deepened this week as New South Wales began recording over 800 cases a day, and regional Victoria went back into lockdown.

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Issue #1960

COVID-19

The pandemic is ravaging India with more than one million new cases every three days – a figure which is undoubtedly a gross underestimate.

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Issue #1979

Can employers mandate vaccinations?

Editorial note: This article does not purport to give legal advice. It is for general informational purposes only With the national COVID-19 vaccine rollout well...

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Issue #2016

Fund public health

Hospitals and their staff are at breaking point as the wave of BA.4/BA.5 COVID-19 sub-strains and flu send hospitalisations to breaking point. GPs across Australia...

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Issue #2047

US maternal death rate highest in developed world

According to a recent report by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) maternal mortality rose by 40 per cent at the height...

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Issue #1970

How the “red rooster line” affects COVID-19 police response

Often referred to light-heartedly, the “Red Rooster line” highlights the class border separating two parts of the city – east and west Sydney – where...

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Issue #2031

Class war budget

The budget, delivered on 25th October, is set in the context of a looming global recession, ongoing wars, rocketing prices, extreme weather events, famine, and...

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Issue #1979

Getting left behind: people at high risk and lockdown

As many Australians eagerly await the seventy per cent vaccination rate so we can finally begin “opening up” and start easing the lockdowns, there is an enormous group of Australians who are being left out of the conversation

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Issue #1965

COVID: It is a race!

As the Victorian state government continued to grapple with the more virulent Delta variant of COVID-19, the federal government failed to recognise the seriousness of the situation.

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Issue #2040

DINGO

“Exhausted,” “struggling to cope,” “let down,” “dangerous,” and “overwhelmed” is how nurses have described working conditions at the prestigious St Vincent’s Private Hospital in Darlinghurst...

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Issue #1993

RAT stoush worsens amid continuing shortages

Rapid antigen tests (RATs) are still proving hard to get a hold of across the country. Since the Liberal Party made the decision for Australia...

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Issue #2023

Nurses strike for better pay and conditions

Earlier this month, Nurses and midwives across NSW went on strike for 24 hours, while maintaining life-preserving care. The demands are simple: The NSW Nurses...

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Issue #2028

Health care is a human right

Reports of emergency patients waiting up to thirty-six hours or more to be off-loaded from ambulances at public hospital emergency departments (EDs) are indicative of...

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Issue #2006

VOTE THEM OUT

The Coalition Morrison government has got to go. On Saturday 21st May vote them out! The Communist Party of Australia rejects the undemocratic electoral system...

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Issue #2009

Feet on the ground

After nine years of corrupt, anti-people, climate deniers in office, the newly elected Albanese Labor government faces many challenges. Expectations of real change are high,...

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Issue #1979

Getting fully vaccinated

Despite the COVID-19 vaccination not being a panacea against the pandemic, currently it is the best option people have to protect themselves, their families, friends and comrades.

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Issue #1970

HARD SHUT DOWN NOW!

The situation in NSW is extremely serious. The Delta strain is far more infectious and deadly than earlier strains. Almost ten per cent of those who tested positive have been hospitalised.

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Issue #2012

AMA President urges immediate action on healthcare crisis

Earlier this month, ahead of Prime Minister Anthony Albanese’s first national cabinet meeting, Dr Omar Khorshid, Australian Medical Association (AMA) President, stated in a media...

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Issue #2015

Policy-induced violence

At least one child is killed by a parent every month; one woman is murdered every week by a partner or former partner; another hospitalised...

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Issue #1968

Only solidarity can defeat COVID

Around the globe, COVID-19 in its various mutations continues to spread, with the health systems of many developing nations unable to cope and vaccines in short supply.

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Issue #2049

NO to AUKUS! – YES to Medicare!

Medicare as a public health insurance scheme offering universal access to bulkbilling, and funded through central revenue is becoming a distant memory. GPs are fully...

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Issue #2057

GLOBAL BRIEFS

NORWAY: A new report commissioned by the Norwegian police into a deadly shooting during Oslo’s annual LGBT Pride festival last year blasted Norway’s domestic security...

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Issue #1956

EDITORIAL – Cabinet shuffle does not bode well

Last Monday, Prime Minister Scott Morrison announced a cabinet reshuffle that saw Defence Minister Linda Reynolds and Attorney-General and Industrial Relations Minister Christian Porter lose their portfolios.

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Issue #2044

Less than eight years to live

Silica dust is so fine that it is 100 times smaller than a grain of sand. But with each breath, you risk death. A Curtin...

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Medical appointment via telehealth. Photo: hillside7 – pixabay.com Issue #2050

For-profit health in the trolley

In the language of privatisation, Sydney’s public trains call the millions who use the system daily, not commuters, but “customers.” Now, with Woolworths, the giant...

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Issue #2053

People’s need not corporate greed

The main focus of recent federal budgets was on economic recovery for the corporate sector, focusing on wiping out the budget deficit created by the...

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