Virus researchers are now saying that it is likely that Swine Flu will go pandemic sometime over the next six to nine months. They predict that about a third of the population will contract the disease. That’s a lot of people. The population of the earth is currently about 6.77 billion, so they are predicting [...]

A US resident has died in Texas from Swine flu. She died earlier in the week but, presumably, the virology results only came in this morning. It is not known yet whether this woman had actually visited Mexico, or whether this is the first death from human to human spread outside of Mexico. She was [...]

Tariana Turia laments the sad state of Maori Health after reading the Mortality and Demographic Data for 2005 (PDF here) and the report of the Perinatal and Maternal Mortality Review Committee (PDF here). She is right that they make grim reading for Maori, although it is not all doom and gloom. Although Maori mortality is [...]

A recent study by Otago university has indicated that there has been an increase in the number of people over the age of 65 being readmitted to hospital or dying within one month of surgery. The study was done comparing the years 2001-2 and 2003-4. The usual expected comments come from the usual people. Grey [...]

The report (PDF) on the death of the baby who died during birthing in Kenepuru Hospital makes interesting reading. It rather blithely states that “Maternity services in the Wellington area are as safe as maternity services anywhere else in New Zealand”. This is rather like saying that, in the current economic crisis, New Zealand banks are no more [...]

“Injustice killing Kiwis on grand scale” blares the headline on Stuff, today. Social injustice is killing people on a grand scale, the New Zealand Medical Journal says. No, it doesn’t. I have the New Zealand Medical Journal (NZMJ) in front of me. Unlike the reporter, I have actually read the papers the article is based on. [...]