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Disaster and words of wisdom
A new guide for disaster management has been targeted at health professionals.
Fire. Floods. Earthquakes. Terrorist attacks. These events may not be part of a health professional’ s typical working day, but they might take over one. To help students and practitioners from different professional fields gain a common understanding of the principles and practice of disaster management, professor Gerry FitzGerald, from QUT’ s School of Public Health, has put together a new common language guide for when a natural or man-made disaster strikes.
Disaster Health Management: A Primer for Students and
Practitioners covers events including the US Ebola outbreak, Victoria’ s bushfires, Iceland’ s 2010 volcano eruption, Tokyo’ s sarin nerve gas attack and the 2010 Haiti earthquake.
FitzGerald said 2011’ s Severe Tropical Cyclone Yasi was an event that made clear one of the challenges health systems face when facilities become unavailable due to a natural disaster, with Cairns Hospital making the call to evacuate patients.
“ The decision had to be made very quickly because if you delay it, then you won’ t be able to get people out, and you don’ t want to make it too early because it’ s a very major thing to do,” FitzGerald said.“ Of course, the whole of the north Queensland was under danger, so the only place to take them was to Brisbane, 2000 kilometres away.
The acting director-general of Emergency Management Australia, Rob Cameron, recently launched the new guide, which provides an overview of disaster health management throughout the continuum of getting ready, responding and recovering.
Cameron said:“ We must learn from past events and ensure that we as a community are as prepared and resilient as we can be, and it’ s through collaborations such as this book that we are able to apply lessons from the past towards mitigating the effects of future disasters.” ■
Older females warned of statin-diabetes link
Elderly women taking statins should be wary of their blood-sugar levels, university researchers caution.
GPs treating elderly women taking statins should regularly monitor for increased blood glucose, researchers have said.
The call was prompted by research that linked the cholesterol-lowering drugs with an increased risk of developing diabetes among elderly women.
Led by Dr Mark Jones from the University of Queensland( UQ)’ s School of Public Health, the study drew from prescription and survey data from 8372 women born between 1921 and 1926 who are regularly surveyed as part of the Australian Longitudinal Study on Women’ s Health.
The research, published in the journal
Drugs and Aging, found women over 75 had a 33 per cent higher chance of developing diabetes if they were taking statins. The risk increased to more than 50 per cent for women taking higher doses of statins.
Jones said that almost half of the women in their late 70s and 80s in the study took statins and 5 per cent were diagnosed with new-onset diabetes.
“ What’ s most concerning was that we found a dose effect where the risk of diabetes increased as the dosage of statins increased,” he said.
Jones said older women considering treatment with statins need to be aware of the increased risks of adverse events, including diabetes, and those on statins should have their blood glucose levels monitored regularly.
Heart Foundation chief medical adviser professor Garry Jennings said new-onset diabetes is a well-established adverse effect of statins and added the UQ study is important as it draws attention to older women, who have commonly been underrepresented in cardiovascular research.
Jennings said the research suggests GPs need to keep an eye out for new-onset diabetes but added the benefits of statins have been shown to override the negative effects of a small number of people who develop diabetes. ■
2 agedcareinsite. com. au