Katie Keane is like any six year old, missing her two front teeth and with a great love of monkey bars. But she lives with the constant threat of anaphylaxis.

If it were not for extensive adaptations of Port Fairy’s kindergarten and Catholic school, mainstream education would be a deathtrap for her.

Dozens of seemingly innocuous items are poisonous to Katie, a list so long that when asked what her daughter is allergic to her mother’s response is to laugh and say “a lot” before beginning to reel off the shopping list of dangers.

PHOTO: Katie’s reactions to allergens vary in severity from large itchy hives (right) to anaphylactic symptoms of limpness, coughing and wheezing (left). (Supplied: Johanna Keane)

“Dairy, eggs, banana, lamb, beef, chicken, pork, leather, nuts, gelatine, strawberries, peas, watermelon, pumpkin. Oh, and she’s very allergic to cows! There’s a whole heap of stuff,” her mother Johanna Keane said.

What Ms Keane leaves off that list, Katie’s St Patrick’s Parish Primary School teachers fill in later.

“Ants, bees, wool, rabbits, chooks, kiwi fruit. She’s heat sensitive too,” four of her teachers chime in together, reciting what they can remember from Katie’s personal anaphylactic management plan.

The plan is an essential document stationed at each of the school’s telephones and in Katie’s special corner in her classroom.

It is part of a comprehensive preventative system the school has invested in so that Katie can attend class.

PHOTO: Katie at her first day of kindergarten after a mammoth effort by her mother and new teachers to make the environment safe. (Supplied: Johanna Keane)

“There was a bit of fear to start with, to be honest,” said Sue Paulka, the school principal in the south-west Victorian town.

Katie’s school aide, Tracey Dalton, quantified that fear.

“I know that everyone here, if they were put in the situation, they would give her that EpiPen. But the thought that you may have to do it, it’s frightening,” she said.

However, after a few months, the effectiveness of their safety plan has helped school staff relax and has revealed the strength of their school community.

“In our classroom we don’t just have two sets of eyes, we have 29 sets of eyes,” said Katie’s class teacher Antonia Balmer.

“The kids know what Katie is allergic to and they’re all on the look-out.

“If they see a bee or an ant crawling around, often they’re quicker to pick that up than we are.

“It’s a bit like that saying — ‘it takes a village to bring up a child’,” she said.

School’s containment plan keeps Katie safe

PHOTO: Katie’s corner isolates her personal items to prevent cross-contamination if other kids were to use them. (ABC South West Victoria: Emily Bissland)

Katie has her own sensor soap and tap, and all of her things are kept in her special corner — a safety requirement this little girl explains with pragmatism.

“I’m allergic and if there was another Katie they wouldn’t know that it would be my stuff,” she said.

“If they touch my things and they didn’t wash their hands then I would get a reaction if I lick my fingers.”

PHOTO: Johanna Keane can access two prescribed EpiPens but buys two more so she always has one on hand. (Supplied)

The school has not banned any particular lunch foods, and they have kept their brood of schoolyard chickens.

The other students simply make sure the chooks are not running around when Katie is.

“Katie’s just blended into our school environment. We’re all aware of her needs, it’s just the logistical side of things and making sure someone is watching her at all times,” said its principal Ms Paulka.

The school adapted and implemented a plan already devised in 2017 by Katie’s kindergarten.

“Thanks to the kinder and all the work they put in to help her transition over to school she’s had a pretty good run,” said Ms Keane, who was so impressed that she nominated the kindergarten for an award.

Port Fairy Kindergarten was this year’s recipients of the ‘Be a MATE’ award from Allergy and Anaphylaxis Australia — MATE being ‘Make Allergy Treatment Easier’.

PHOTO: Katie at a presentation of Allergy and Anaphylaxis Australia’s Be a MATE award to Port Fairy Kindergarten. (ABC South West Victoria: Emily Bissland)

School foots the bill

Tracey Dalton was Katie’s kindergarten aide and is now her school aide.

The position is funded by the school — an approximated $50,000 per annum commitment — since St Patrick’s application to the Catholic Education Commission of Victoria’s funding from the Students with Disabilities (SWD) program was rejected.

Ms Dalton is charged with being constantly aware of Katie’s whereabouts and what she is coming into contact with.

“We make sure she’s wearing a vest out in the playground so that if she has a reaction, you know exactly where she is at what time,” Ms Dalton said.

“We try to keep her out of the bushes and trees because of bees and ants, and in the hotter months we need to slow her down because she was breaking out in hives.”

PHOTO: Katie is able to enjoy a fairly regular schoolyard experience despite her plethora of allergies and risk of anaphylaxis. (ABC South West Victoria: Emily Bissland)

She is imperative in keeping Katie safe, and because of that St Patrick’s has committed to funding the position throughout Katie’s primary education.

In an incredible display of her can-do attitude, Katie’s mother is always very quick to point out all the things her daughter can eat.

“She can eat hake, and tinned tuna. She loves green beans and potato chips, and she can have wheat and soy. So we’re a bit lucky there,” Ms Keane said, without irony.

Constant preparedness the key

Ms Keane’s willingness to laugh and emphasis on the positive is indicative of her character. She cares for her daughters with an admirable mixture of light-hearted warmth and meticulous organisation.

She said that Katie’s sister Izzi has also been great support.

“Izzi has been present for most of Katie’s reactions which is pretty stressful for a sibling,” she said.

“She goes out of her way to tell Katie that she’s jealous of what she ‘gets to eat’, just to make her feel special.

PHOTO: Katie enjoys a relatively fear-free life thanks to her mother Jo. (ABC South West Victoria: Emily Bissland)

“I’m very lucky to have two fabulous kids.”

Ms Keane’s determination to maintain a balanced outlook is in many ways the key element that allows Katie to experience a happy childhood, unencumbered by fear.

But the fear is real, and Johanna Keane’s calm is astonishing.

She is a nurse by day, and in every other waking hour a mother who must remain in a constant state of preparedness.

In Katie’s short life she has been saved by EpiPen 12 times. On five of those occasions, it was Katie’s mum who administered the life-saving treatment.

Living 20 minutes from an ambulance services means that the emergency has to be dealt with by her.

“One of the things I had to overcome quickly is that if you don’t act the possibility is death,” Ms Keane said.

“You have to be brave, if anything, that’s what I’ve had to learn — that I can actually be very brave.”

Despite this, Ms Keane is seemingly buoyant with optimism.

“I don’t like her whole life to be about her allergies, we lead a really normal life,” she emphasised.

“There’s just a lot of planning involved if you do something out of the ordinary.”

Fastidious planning

Ms Keane tells of how some of the small things can be hard — like always needing to be aware of what you are wearing before you hug your daughter.

“Katie can spot wool from a mile off,” she said.

Katie’s dad, Glenn Keane, is a butcher, and working with meat every day meant he had to go home and shower before he could pick Katie up from school.

Otherwise he had to tell her “no hugs”.

“That’s really hard,” Ms Keane said.

“Not being able to hug your daughter, or having to brush your teeth and wash your face before you can give her a kiss.”

Her parents’ fastidious planning and her school’s multi-layered system of protection is keeping Katie happy, safe and included.

“I’m overwhelmed by Katie’s resilience,” Ms Keane said.

“Fortunately, I don’t think she feels that different because she is never excluded.

First Aid Course in Canberra at www.canberrafirstaid.com, or if you are in Sydney www.simpleinstruction.com.au or Melbourne www.allenstraining.com.au

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Asthma is more prevalent and more serious in Shepparton compared with Melbourne according to a local respiratory specialist.

Dr Adrian Chazan, a respiratory and sleep specialist at Wyndham House Clinic in Shepparton, said he dealt with a variety of conditions but local patients often presented with more serious cases of asthma.

Having worked in both Shepparton and Melbourne for the past six years, Dr Chazan said there were a few reasons asthma was more prolific in the Goulburn Valley.

‘‘Shepparton is a hot spot for allergies due to a mix of grass and pollen,’’ he said.

‘‘It also tends to be a lot more of a drier and hotter climate here.’’

Dr Chazan said it was also due to the industry in the area where workers were often exposed to substances that worsened asthma.

‘‘For farmers there’s also a major risk for asthma due to animal products,’’ he said, and added being around animals could trigger asthma.

‘‘The asthma here is more common and more severe.’’

He, along with respiratory scientist Emily Francois, can now diagnose asthma and many other respiratory conditions in Shepparton, removing the need for patients to travel elsewhere.

‘‘We’ve just developed a lung function testing lab, which is a big deal,’’ Dr Chazan said.

‘‘It’s a big project we’ve been working on for a long time.’’

A variety of tests can reveal a patient’s respiratory function and consequently their condition can be managed accordingly.

The clinic also works with GPs to diagnose their patients and the service is bulk-billed.

Book in for your first aid training update at www.canberrafirstaid.com

Learn about Asthma treatment in our first aid training courses in Canberra.

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A GOVERNMENT minister has decried a worrying rise in the number of people “train surfing” on the Sydney rail network.

The past year has seen a 43 per cent rise in the number of people riding the exterior of trains.

Sydney Trains has released images and CCTV of the daredevil behaviour in the hope it will discourage the trend which saw 110 people caught train surfing in the last 12 months.

It is currently Rail Safety Week in NSW.

The images show people jumping onto the outside of the rear cabs of trains and then hanging on as the train departs. The images come primarily from the T3 Bankstown and T4 Illawarra lines.

CCTV footage of a man train surfing at Bankstown station in Sydney’s south west. Picture: Sydney Trains
CCTV footage of a man train surfing at Bankstown station in Sydney’s south west. Picture: Sydney TrainsSource:Supplied

The number of people train surfing has almost doubled. Picture: Sydney Trains
The number of people train surfing has almost doubled. Picture: Sydney TrainsSource:Supplied

Two people riding the rear of a train at Mortdale in Sydney’s south. Picture: Sydney Trains
Two people riding the rear of a train at Mortdale in Sydney’s south. Picture: Sydney TrainsSource:Supplied

The state’s Minister for Transport Andrew Constance said there was epidemic of people riding the outside of trains, playing chicken with trains and crossing the tracks, putting their lives in danger in the process.

“This is scary stuff,” he said. “People need to realise they are dealing with a 400 tonne vehicle, the chances of surviving if something goes wrong are very, very low,” Mr Constance said.

“Trespassing in the rail corridor or surfing the outside of the train is not only illegal, it’s also extremely dangerous and stupid behaviour.

“It only takes a train accelerating quickly or braking suddenly to shake someone onto the tracks. If the fall itself doesn’t kill you, the next train coming along probably will,” Mr Constance said.

A near miss with a child running across the tracks in Dapto, in the Illawarra.
A near miss with a child running across the tracks in Dapto, in the Illawarra.Source:Supplied

Sydney Trains conducted an exercise to illustrate how long it takes a train to stop and the impact of a train hitting someone.

The organisation collided a train travelling at 100km/h, with the emergency brakes applied, into balloons and polystyrene boards at various distances.

The furthest objects were placed 225 metres from the train from the point where it slammed on the brakes.

“In the test we modelled, it took 325 metres for the train to come to a full stop. That’s more than three football fields in distance, that’s compared to a car which would likely take 128 metres to stop,” Mr Constance said.

Transport for NSW are working closely with Police Transport Command to target and deter reckless behaviour, and provide CCTV footage to help identify risk takers.

The minimum fine for people caught trespassing is $400 but this can be has high as $5,500.

“The message is it is not worth risking your life for a cheap thrill,” Mr Constance said.

Lets hope that this stops. Otherwise hopefully the people around to help have completed a first aid course recently. If you would like to book a first aid course in Canberra please see www.canberrafirstaid.com

The substantial client list of a winner at last year’s Irish Healthcare Awards is growing, and Mental Health First Aid Ireland is now teaching mental health first aid skills to blue-chip companies’ employees, Peter Doyle reports.

It has been a busy 10 months at Mental Health First Aid Ireland (MHFAI) since it was honoured at last year’s Irish Healthcare Awards, the so-called health Oscars.

After winning the Patient Lifestyle Education Project of the Year prize at last November’s award ceremony, the training body refused to rest on its laurels, and rolled out course after course at workplaces around the country.

Their substantial client list now includes blue-chip employers such as AirBnB and Vhi Ireland, while members of the Defence Forces are also learning mental health first aid (MHFA) skills alongside their basic training.

And MHFAI’s Manager Donal Scanlan has revealed to the Irish Medical Times that next month they will being teaching the art of MHFA to the ranks of An Garda Síochána.

MHFA skills
But to understand how MHFA skills will benefit gardaí in their day-to-day duties, it is perhaps best to get an insight into what MHFA actually is — and, more importantly, what it is not.

Developed in Australia around the turn of the century, MHFA is defined as the help provided to a person who is developing a mental health problem, experiencing a worsening of an existing mental health problem or in a mental health crisis.

To provide this help, people are trained in the skills and knowledge to recognise when a colleague is going through a difficult time.

This does not mean that a MHFA practitioner steams in at the first sign of a problem with, as Scanlan said, their “super-hero cape on and saying ‘I have all the answers’”.

“It is about giving people the tools to recognise when somebody might be having a difficulty, (and) the confidence to be able to offer them some support,” he added.

“We don’t want people coming away from a mental health first aid course thinking they are a therapist or a counsellor. They are not. They are coming away with a little bit more expertise, and a bit more knowledge, to be able to help each other on a person-to-person level.

“We do an awful lot of work in workplace settings. You do not want people going round, diagnosing. This is not about diagnosis, in any way. We are not sending people out to say, ‘I see you have depression, I see you have anxiety’. It’s not that.

“It’s about helping people to be able to respond to what someone’s experience might be like.”

There are obvious parallels with physical first aid and Scanlan hopes that the mental health first aider will become as ubiquitous in the workplace as the designated first aider armed with a box full of bandages and sticking plasters.

Stigma
But he is aware that the stigma that still surrounds mental illness may make people wary of admitting to feeling stressed or anxious at work, fearing that they will be perceived as weak or unbalanced.

It is something that many of the employers MHFAI works with are aware of too, as Scanlan revealed: “Some organisations have gone so far as to properly highlight that there is a mental health first aider, and because they have other roles (in human resources, for example) we are not clearly delineating people as being mental health first aiders.”

As for the so-called stigma, Scanlan hopes MHFA’s rising popularity — a recent survey by Laya Healthcare revealed that 91 per cent of parents of primary school children believe teachers should receive MHFA training — will bring about a cultural change, whereby people will no longer feel they can not admit to feeling stressed or anxious at work.

He further claims that employers are also keen on changing ingrained workplace attitudes and “are using mental health first aid to underpin that change”.

“A much more successful way of looking at mental health first aid training was, yes, have mental health first aiders, but maybe not confine it to a small group of people,” he said. “Let’s have a cultural shift instead, and use mental health first aid in a way that broadens the knowledge and the approach to mental health in organisations.

“In our mind, talking about mental health doesn’t cause mental health problems,” he added. “There is no evidence to suggest that. We shouldn’t be shying away from those conversations. If anything, we should be encouraging them.”

Strong evidence
There is, however, strong evidence in support of MHFA as something that can have a positive impact for staff.

For example, a recent meta­-analysis of MHFA training found that mental health first aiders were able to support their colleagues “up to six months after training”.

“Given low rates of treatment-­seeking, and evidence that people are more likely to seek help if someone close to them suggests it, the support that people receive from those in their social networks is an important factor in improving mental health outcomes,” Morgan et al concluded in their paper, ‘Systematic review and meta-analysis of Mental Health First Aid training: Effects on knowledge, stigma, and helping behaviour’, published in Public Library of Science Journal, May this year.

Another paper reported that mental health first aid course were responsible in significant improvement of knowledge in participants, “which has the potential to increase understanding and support for those suffering mental illness”.

“Mental health first aid courses potentially enable individuals who are not otherwise involved in mental health to assist people in need,” Morrissey et al added in their paper, ‘Do Mental Health First Aid courses enhance knowledge?’, which was published in The Journal of Mental Health Training, Education and Practice last year.

While, in 2016, a study focusing on the effectiveness of MHFA training for financial counsellors recognised that there was a “significant link between financial difficulties and mental health problems”.

And Bond et al noted in ‘Mental health first aid course for Australian financial counsellors: an evaluation study’ published in Advances in Mental Health Journal 2016, that financial counsellors in Australia were well-placed to help vulnerable clients get appropriate care and that MHFA was “an appropriate form of training for them” to enable them to do so.

The body of evidence in support of MHFA could well explain why over the past four years the number of mental health first aiders in Ireland has soared from several dozen to more than 3,000, as more and more organisations embrace the concept.

With research from the Economic and Social Research Institute revealing that 18 per cent of workplace absences were due to stress, anxiety and depression, there is little wonder that employers are now embracing the MHFA credo as a method of early intervention.

Arming communities
As Scanlan notes, this can only be good news for the primary care sector, especially general practitioners (GPs).

“Professionals are not always immediately available. Some people do not even recognise that what is going on with them is even mental health related,” he commented.

“This [MHFA] is an opportunity to arm our communities to respond to each other’s mental health first, and to see us as being part of the solution, rather than it always having to be about the medics, the doctors, and the nurses solving the problems.”

He added: “GPs need all the support they can get, and doctors and mental health professionals need support. It is not about increasing referrals to these services, it’s about being able to respond in the moment, so hopefully being able to prevent people ever being referred to professionals. Or if they do need it, then it is done appropriately.”

As MHFAI continues to develop courses for workplaces across Ireland, it has not neglected the growing need for the delivery of MHFA training for teenagers.

With this in mind, they are hoping to appoint a trainer in the very near future to help design and deliver courses for that particular age group.

Scanlan said: “One of the things I am really excited about is MHFA Teen, which is peer-to-peer support teaching young people themselves in secondary schools.”

“The idea of MHFA Teen is having adults, first of all, undergo MHFA youth training so you have one good adult supporting young people,” he explained.

“We have the material ready to go; we just have to redesign it for an Irish context. That’s what the new person is going to be doing, heading up this project.”

Guardians of peace
Meanwhile, the first of five MHFA courses for gardaí will be rolled out next month.

The pilot courses are part of a project they launched in conjunction with the Health Service Executive in April 2017 to make MHFA more widely available in Ireland.

And this was the project that was honoured at last year’s Irish Healthcare Awards. Scanlan said police forces around the world are turning to MHFA as a tool not only to help officers in the workplace but to help them also carry out their duties.

“We will see 100 gardaí trained in mental health first aid. It is just the start and we don’t know where it is going to go just yet,” he added.

“From the perspective of an internal support service, there is a lot of really good work going on in the gardaí that doesn’t always get highlighted.

“However, I think they need a little bit more support in not only supporting each other but also in relation to the guidance they might get on how to support the mental health of the people they are dealing with.”

A large proportion of the cases the gardaí are dealing with in the public realm are related to mental health, and MHFA has been used to train police forces around the world in the topic of mental health.

The Federal Government in the United States, the Western Australia police force, the Royal Canadian Mountain Police, are all using MHFA as part of their training.

Scanlan added: “We would like to have that same kind of impact in Ireland. The gardaí themselves are interested in expanding that project afterwards, but we will see where that goes.”

For more information, visit www.mhfaireland.ie.

Or book in to a first aid course with Canberra First Aid at www.canberrafirstaid.com

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EDMONDS — Principals, coaches and about 120 staffers in the Edmonds School District went back to the classroom this week, to learn their ACTs.

A new crash course boils down a standard first aid lesson to a one-hour summary — quick, easy, memorable keys that could be the difference between life and death.

The curriculum was designed by staff at South County Fire, for the modern layperson.

“Not a lot of people want to come in for eight hours on a Saturday for a first aid class,” said Shaughn Maxwell, deputy chief of emergency medical services. “So how much of what we teach in eight hours is going to save someone’s life, in those first five minutes before the firefighters get there?”

This Cliff’s Notes version gives the bare essentials.

Just three things.

A is for antidote, a grim reflection of the reality that overdoses are now a leading killer of people under 50. Paramedics show how to spray naloxone into the nose of a mannequin head, to reverse an overdose on opioids.

C is for CPR, a centerpiece of any first aid course.

T is for tourniquet, a tool that can stop bleeding in accidents, stabbings and shootings.

About 250,000 people are served by South County Fire, in the general area of Edmonds, Lynnwood and Mill Creek. Paramedics found they were training maybe 20 people per week in their full-on first aid classes, Maxwell said. If you have a cardiac arrest, and you’re counting on a passerby to save your life, those numbers don’t sound too comforting.

Maxwell hopes the simplified program can train 6,000 people a year.

The first mass lesson was held Friday in the Great Hall at Edmonds-Woodway High School. Small groups split into stations, rotating every 15 minutes. Men in khakis and striped dress shirts knelt in the south end of the hall, pumping chests of pink plastic dummies, to the beat of the Bee Gees anthem “Staying Alive.” Time was counted by South County Fire Capt. Andre Yoakum, in one of several semi-circles of school administrators. They had to pump for two minutes before they could call in a reliever.

“This should be physically grueling,” Yoakum said. “It’s kind of like doing a workout. It’s kind of like having to climb that mountain, if you focus your mind on the physicality of doing this job — one minute! — it’s going to help distract your mind and keep you doing 120 beats per minute.”

Posters explain the steps. Call 911; send someone to get an AED; start compressions; hook up the AED, follow instructions and keep going until help shows up.

In a cardiac arrest, the odds of survival go down 7 to 10 percent with each minute that passes without CPR, according to the American Heart Association.

“This is a tunnel vision job,” Yoakum said. “You don’t need to be thinking about anything distracting, other than getting other people in here to help you.”

Once the hands-on training is over, there’s time for questions — for example, how do we know when we’re supposed to give CPR? (Answer: If the patient is not breathing and not responding.)

Many emergencies of today are not the emergencies of, say, 1918.

“The way we do first aid now is really the same way we’ve done it for 100 years,” Maxwell said. “But we know our world has changed significantly in the past 100 years.”

We have an opioid epidemic.

We have a mass shooting epidemic.

We die from cardiac arrest, diabetes and obesity-related health problems.

So the class aims to battle the public health crises of the day. And as far as Maxwell can tell, no one else is doing a class like this in the country. He dreams of every local high school freshman going through the training, and eventually seeing the program go nationwide.

For now, he’s seeking grants to better fund it.

Demand has been far too high for South County staff to handle. In a way, he said, that’s a good problem to have.

Caleb Hutton: 425-339-3454; [email protected]. Twitter: @snocaleb.

If you would like to book in to a first aid course in Canberra. here is the link www.canberrafirstaid.com

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When someone is choking, their airway is partly or completely blocked, meaning they may be unable to breathe properly. They might be able to clear it by coughing, but if they can’t you will need to help them straight away.

What to look for

1. They may have difficult breathing, speaking or coughing. 2. A red puffy face. 3. They may show signs of distress and may point to their throat, or grasp their neck.

What to do 1. If you think someone is choking, ask them ‘Are you choking?’ If they can breathe, speak or cough then they might be able to clear their own throat. If they cannot breathe, cough, or make any noise, then they need your help straight away. 2. Cough it out. Encourage them to cough and remove any obvious obstruction from their mouth. 3. Slap it out. If coughing fails to work, you need to give five sharp back blows. To do this, help them to lean forwards, supporting their upper body with one hand. With the heel of your other hand give them five sharp back blows between their shoulder blades. After each back blow, check to see if there’s anything in their mouth. 4. Squeeze it out. If back blows fail to clear the obstruction, give five abdominal thrusts. To do this, stand behind them and put your arms around their waist. Place one hand in a clenched fist between their belly button and the bottom of their chest. With your other hand, grasp your fist and pull sharply inwards and upwards up to five times. Check their mouth again, each time. 5. If the blockage has not cleared, call 999 or 112 for emergency help straight away. Repeat five back blows and five abdominal thrusts until help arrives, re-checking their mouth each time.

If they become unresponsive at any point prepare to start adult CPR. For those looking for quick, easily accessible first aid information, the Allens Training app is available free on smartphones and the website ( www.canberrafirstaid.com) offers demo videos, an interactive game, and lots of free advice. For more information about first aid course call 0449746357.

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A QUEENSLAND judge’s suggestion that Australia’s blood-alcohol limit of 0.05 might be “a bit low” has drawn criticism right around the country.

While sentencing a man who blew 0.062 at a roadside test, Bundaberg magistrate Neil Lavaring questioned why the previous drink-driving limit of 0.08 had been changed, the Bundaberg NewsMail reported.

Regardless of the state or territory Australians drive in, their blood alcohol concentration (BAC) needs to be less than 0.05.

But the judge’s suggestion to raise the drink-driving limit has been met with widespread criticism, including from a father whose daughter Sarah was killed in 2012 by a distracted driver.

Peter Frazer, the man behind Safer Roads and Highways (SARAH), told news.com.au he was “very concerned a magistrate was making comments like that”.

“There should absolutely not be any change to the law. I couldn’t imagine a government amending rules to increase the drink driving limit as too many people are already killed or injured as a result of drink driving,” he said.

“Should such a circumstance occur that the government considered it, we would be vehemently opposed to it as we believe it’s everyone’s responsibility to look after each other and not increase those risks.”

A Queensland magistrate suggested drink-driving laws might be “a bit low”.Source:News Limited

Queensland’s peak motoring body RACQ also dismissed the judge’s comments.

RACQ’s Steve Spalding said Australia has been at the forefront when it came to education and enforcement of drink-drivers and there was no evidence current laws should be changed.

“Around the world 0.05 blood alcohol limit is seen as good practice, and some countries actually consider it too high,” Mr Spalding said.

“It’s clear from research that your crash risk spikes if you’re driving at 0.05 and increases sharply from there.

“Alcohol consumption above this limit can reduce your reaction time, your ability to judge distances and your concentration span.

“We strongly urge the Government not to increase the blood alcohol limit.”

According to DrinkWise, the effects from alcohol on driving are felt even when a person’s blood alcohol content is 0.02.

When a driver’s BAC is between 0.05 and 0.08, they are slower at reacting and have a shorter concentration span.

Above 0.08, drivers are five times more likely to have a crash than they would if they were sober.

A Queensland Police spokesman declined to comment on the judge’s suggestion and said police simply enforced the law rather than created or changed them.

The judge’s comments were also slammed on social media, with most commenters instead calling for the BAC to drop to zero, to be in line with the country’s provisional drivers.

One commenter on Facebook said talk of raising the limit was “potentially a slap in the face to loved ones who have lost a family member to a drunk driver”.

This is an interesting take on the law. Book a first aid course at www.canberrafirstaid.com

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A VICTORIAN man has been diagnosed with the deadly and uncommon fungal superbug Candida auris (or C. auris).

This is the first known case of C. auris in Victoria, prompting authorities to adopt a “search and destroy” approach to prevent an outbreak.

The man in his 70s most likely contracted the infection while in a UK hospital, Victoria’s deputy chief health officer Brett Sutton said.

The state’s health department is working closely with the healthcare facility where the patient was admitted to screen any other patients who may have been in contact with the virus.

According to the department, the superbug causes serious bloodstream infections and even death, “particularly in hospital and nursing home patients with serious medical problems”.

“More than 1 in 3 patients with invasive C. auris infection (for example, an infection that affects the blood, heart, or brain) die,” the department stated.

Those at risk include recent overseas healthcare admissions — particularly in the UK, US, South Korea, India, Pakistan, South Africa, Kuwait, Colombia and Venezuela — and also those who have diabetes mellitus, use antibiotics (especially broad-spectrum antibiotics) and or have recently had surgery.

According to the health department, C. auris is transmitted via person-to-person contact and transmitted through medical equipment such as axillary thermometers.

“Candida auris can cause problems in hospitals and nursing homes as it can spread from one patient to another or nearby objects, allowing the fungus to spread to people around them,” the department warns.

The man was in a Melbourne hospital for a pre-existing condition when the diagnosis was made and was isolated from other patients, The Sun reported

No one else is believed to have been exposed as the man was in a single room, Dr Sutton said.

All infection control precautions are being taken and cleaning has been completed.

Dr Sutton said the fungus was often highly resistant to medicines, which made it hard to treat.

While most healthy people do not get sick from the superbug, vulnerable patients are more susceptible and may develop severe and potentially fatal infections

Outbreaks have occurred in more than 20 countries since the organism was first discovered in 2009.

A warning has been issued advising health services of the case and the steps clinicians can take if they suspect a case of the fungus.

Any confirmed cases (colonisation or infection) of C. auris in a patient should be reported to the Department of Health and Human Services on 1300 651 160.

WHAT IS C. AURIS?

Candida auris is a yeast, a new variety of an organism so common that it’s used as one of the basic tools of lab science.

A lead researcher called it “more infectious than ebola”.

“This bug is the most difficult we’ve ever seen,” Centre for Disease Control and Prevention mycotic diseases chief Dr Tom Chiller said. “It’s much harder to kill.”

According to Maryn McKenna, American journalist and author of Superbug, science can’t yet say where it came from or how to control its spread.

“It’s been on the radar of epidemiologists only since 2009, but it’s grown into a potent microbial threat, found in 27 countries thus far,” she wrote on Wired.

She said the main problem is that this yeast isn’t behaving like a yeast.

“Normally, yeast hangs out in warm, damp spaces in the body, and surges out of that niche only when its local ecosystem veers out of balance,” McKenna said. “That’s what happens in vaginal yeast infections, for instance, and also in infections that bloom in the mouth and throat or bloodstream when the immune system breaks down.

“But in that standard scenario, the yeast that has gone rogue only infects the person it was residing in.

“C. auris breaks that pattern. It has developed the ability to survive on cool external skin and cold inorganic surfaces, which allows it to linger on the hands of healthcare workers and on the doorknobs and counters and computer keys of a hospital room.”

An Australian man is in isolation being diagnosed with the deadly superbug (not pictured) known as C. auris from a hospital in the UK.Source:Supplied

SYMPTOMS AND TRANSMISSION

According to the Victorian Government’s health information website, colonisation is generally on the skin, in the urine or around other indwelling devices (such as tubes and catheters).

Invasive infection can present as sepsis, urinary tract infections, wound infections, ear infections or line infections.

WHY IS IT A MAJOR HEALTH CONCERN

It causes serious infections: C. auris can cause bloodstream infections and even death, particularly in hospital and nursing home patients with serious medical problems. More than one in three patients with an invasive C. auris infection (for example, an infection that affects the blood, heart, or brain) die.

It’s often resistant to medicines: Antifungal medicines commonly used to treat Candida infections often don’t work for Candida auris. Some C. auris infections have been resistant to all three types of antifungal medicines.

It’s becoming more common: Although C. auris was just discovered in 2009, it has spread quickly and caused infections or facility outbreaks in more than a dozen countries.

It’s difficult to identify: C. auris can be misidentified as other types of fungi unless specialised laboratory technology is used. This misidentification might lead to a patient getting the wrong treatment.

It can spread in hospitals and nursing homes: C. auris has caused outbreaks in healthcare facilities and can spread through contact with affected patients and contaminated surfaces or equipment. Good hand hygiene and cleaning in healthcare facilities is essential because C. auris can live on surfaces for several weeks.

Book a first aid course with www.canberrafirstaid.com