Lamb said that the NHS is under huge pressure from an ageing population, with the number of elderly patients suffering chronic and complex health problems growing and that tackling it would be “the challenge of the 21st century.”“Accident and Emergency [A&E] units are under pressure, ambulances are carrying more patients than they should, significant numbers of people are in hospital who should be cared for elsewhere. The system is becoming dysfunctional and we need to do something about it,” Lamb told the Telegraph.While one of Britain’s most senior A&E doctors, Dr. Cliff Mann, from the College of Emergency Medicine, said that they had begun to feel like “war zones,” and that many doctors were turning their backs on emergency medicine. The current funding system where hospitals have a financial incentive to hang on to patients is at the heart of the problem and currently there is no reward for a hospital to get patients to leave.In an attempt to address the issue, minsters will announce Tuesday plans to co-ordinate NHS services and councils to make sure than more is done to organize home-help for elderly patients or make basic adaptations to their home so that they can return there rather than languishing in hospitals.A series of pilot schemes will be set up to test more joined up ways for health and social care providers to work together. The plan is that the schemes will be expanded to every part of the country by 2015.“At the moment the system is horribly fragmented and that means bad care – distress, crises occurring that could be avoided, massive disruption to people’s lives. If we carry on as we are the system will collapse,” said Lamb.Hospital regulators have also announced a review of the NHS funding system to encourage hospitals to release patients earlier.Other plans which could be implemented under the review include giving elderly patients their own personal NHS worker who would manage all their care needs including home help and physiotherapy, as well as medical treatment.While the system of paying doctors for completing specific activities will also be overhauled so that they are only rewarded for actual improvements in a patient’s health.Lamb’s announcement comes just days after David Prior, the head of the UK’s Care Quality Commission (CQC), the leading UK health watchdog, said that acute beds for the elderly must be closed and that admissions through A&E are out of control.Robert Francis QC, who conducted the review into failings at the Mid-Staffordshire NHS trust, which led to the deaths of 1,200 people between 2005 and 2009, told the Nursing Times that while doctors and hospital managers understood that serious changes need to be made, certain members of the nursing profession were not taking the problem seriously enough. … Read More
New Orleans police release pictures of suspected Mother’s Day Parade shooter (VIDEO)
Cellphone video obtained by police shows the Mother’s Day parade crowd suddenly scattering, and some falling to the ground, in front of a man wearing a white T-shirt and dark pants. He is seen running away from the crowd while shooting at people.Gunfire erupted in the Seventh Ward neighborhood at around 2:00pm local time (1900 GMT) during an annual Mother’s Day parade attended by up to 400 people. Based on a preliminary investigation, the FBI has confirmed that the shooting was likely related to street violence, not terrorism.Investigators are continuing to conduct interviews, and collect evidence and surveillance video from the scene. The image of the shooter is not clear, but police said they hope someone will recognize him.Police and local media have called for anyone who recognizes or may know the possible suspect to contact crime stoppers in the hope of tracing the gunman, or gunmen. Up to three gunmen are believed to be at large.”There were hundreds of people there, and somebody saw something,” New Orleans mayor Mitch Landrieu said in a public appeal.A $2,500 cash reward was initially offered, which was later raised to $10,000 amid a massive manhunt. The reward is being offered to anyone who can provide information that leads to an arrest.Former CIA agent Glenn Carle told RT that the violence did not resemble a terror attack: “It doesn’t have any of the hallmarks or modus operandi of terrorist groups that I ever worked against, that we know about in the intelligence community in the United States. It seems – knowing nothing more than the media reports – to have been either astoundingly amateurish by a terrorist, and I don’t think that’s the case, or more likely a gang-related kind of violent act.”The shooting victims – 10 men, seven women, a boy and a girl, both 10 years old – were taken to hospitals for non-life-threatening wounds; three remain in critical condition. … Read More
Global ‘March against Monsanto’ scheduled for May 25
http://www.youtube.com/v/aOgfisTICNk?version=3&f=videos&app=youtube_gdata Read the article: Global ‘March against Monsanto’ scheduled for May 25
83-year-old nun gets 20 year sentence for ‘symbolic’ nuclear facility break-in
An 83-year-old nun who broke into a Tennessee depleted uranium storage facility in 2012 and splashed human blood on several surfaces, exposing a massive security hole at the nation’s only facility used to store radioactive conventional munitions, was convicted Wednesday and sentenced to a…
Pollin Responds to Reinhart and Rogoff; Cuts Deepen and Stock Market Soars
Bob Pollin: NYT Op-ed defending study repeats errors; theoretical basis for austerity has been exposed yet massive cuts in public spending continue … Read More
Home-made bombmaking: New US teen craze?
Joshua Prater, a student at Marcos de Niza High School in Tempe, Arizona was arrested on Tuesday after a cleaning lady found what later turned out to be a home-made bomb in his house. The woman noticed a strange device with wires sticking out while doing her regular cleaning. She took the device to the local fire station, where police specialists identified it as an improvised explosive device (IED). “They had it X-rayed, they saw it was a valid IED. It was something that wasn’t big, but could cause serious injuries and the death of someone,” said Tempe Police Sgt. Mike Pooley as cited by KTAR Newsroom. The device was disabled and the house where it was found searched where more explosives were discovered. The 18-year-old was arrested by police on charges of possessing a prohibited weapon. Prater’s possible plan for using the IED are being investigated. On the same day, 18-year-old Mason Beuning was detained in Gainsville, Florida for allegedly stealing from a local Walmart store items which could be used for making an IED. The bomb squad searched the teenager’s home and found a device. “It was a small device. Definitely would have injured someone who was right next to it, but the device was not something that would cause a great amount of destruction,” Gainesville Police Officer Ben Tobias said as cited by ActionNewsJax.com. Beuning’s friends, questioned by police, said the device was assembled just for fun, to explode it in the woods. The arrests come at the time when the US is on alert, following the Boston Marathon bombings which three people dead and over 200 injured. Two young men who emigrated to the US from Russia in 2001 were accused of the attack using improvised explosive devices. That tragedy has led to people starting questioning the effectiveness of the anti-terror campaign the US has been engaged in since 9/11. “I believe this was a massive failure of the surveillance state that we’ve created in America. Since 9/11 we spent over $700 billion on national security and a lot of that is surveillance with video cameras, with massive data collection, with fusion centers, and none of those helped to deter or detect any terrorist plot. And while the surveillance video was useful in reconstructing what happened it didn’t prevent it,” American lawyer Jesselyn Radack told RT. Now with the information on making anything, including bombs, being available online, cases of teens building IEDs is becoming more common. A week ago a teenage girl in Florida was arrested for allegedly “discharging weapons or firerarms” on the grounds of her school in the town of Bartow. 16-year-old Kiera Wilmot says she was only carrying out an experiment, mixing substances in a plastic bottle. The chemical reaction tore the bottle’s cap off and led to the girl being taken away to police department. At the end of April, a New Jersey teenager was charged with possession of explosive devices, when police discovered 6 IEDs in different stages of assembly in his house. That was part of the police’s investigation into bombing threats left at the boy’s school on the same day Boston Marathon bombs went off. … Read More
Pakistani prosecutor in Bhutto assassination case killed in drive-by shooting
Zulfiqar had been driving to an anti-terrorism court to a hearing related to Bhutto’s death when the attack took place. The gunmen approached in a taxi and opened fire, hitting him in the head, shoulder and chest, police officer Mohammed Ishaq told AP. The injuries Zulfiqar sustained caused him to lose control of his vehicle, hitting a female passer-by and killing her in the process. Zulfiqar’s guard, Farman Ali, returned fire at the assailants, wounding one and sustaining injuries himself. Questions were subsequently raised as to why only one security guard was riding with Zulfiqar in the car. He was pronounced dead on arrival at hospital, and his remains have been taken to the Pakistan Institute of Medical Sciences hospital in the city for further examination. A massive search is underway to track down the identities of the gunmen, who fled immediately following the incident. Bhutto was murdered in December 2007, after speaking as leader at a Pakistan People’s Party rally, when rounds of bullets were fired at her shortly before a suicide blast next to her vehicle. The attack took place two weeks before the 2008 Pakistani General Election, in which she was the leading opposition candidate. Zulfiqar acted as a public prosecutor in the high-profile case, and has repeatedly confirmed high court rulings and the issuance of arrest warrants to the press. Former military ruler Pervez Musharraf, currently under house arrest on the outskirts of Islamabad, stands accused of being complicit in the murder of Benazir Bhutto and not providing her with enough security after she expressed fear for her life. He is also being held over his detention of high court judges in 2007. Musharraf returned to Pakistan in March to contest the election on May 11, amid death threats from the Pakistani Taliban. In mid-April he was banned from standing as a candidate, crushing his ambition to re-enter public life. His arrest warrant was issued shortly afterwards. It was confirmed that the hearing for the Bhutto case that Zulfiqar was en route to also pertained to Musharraf. Musharraf maintains that the Pakistani Taliban were the sole group behind Bhutto’s death. Zulfiqar additionally headed the prosecution in a case relating to the 2008 bombings and shootings that rocked Mumbai, killing 166. Ajmal Kasab, the sole surviving attacker, confirmed that the 12 coordinated attacks across the city were carried out by a Pakistani militant group, Lashkar-e-Taiba, before he was hanged. India has criticized Pakistan for not doing more to crack down on the militant group as a whole. Seven men have been put on trial for their alleged assistance in the attacks, but little progress has been made and the head of the group remains free. … Read More
