tetano
Editor, Senior Moderator
The confused and sometimes contradictory Federal and State government responses to last year?s swine flu pandemic show there is a need for a single national disease control agency, a new review has concluded.
While the overall response to the 2009 H1N1 pandemic was good, the outbreak put enormous strain on general practices, emergency departments and public health laboratories, a review by the WA Public Health Division has found.
Writing in the Australian Health Review, public health clinicians say responses to the unfolding pandemic were inconsistent, with school closures recommended in some states, while major public gatherings such as the Victorian the State of Origin were not cancelled.
Communication was also erratic, with GPs on the front line receiving advice from both Federal and State governments as well as from various professional groups.
?There are many possible communication channels into individual practices, either from Commonwealth or State bureaucracies or from general practice divisions, the AMA or the RACGP, which need to be streamlined in future to avoid duplication, confusion and overload,? the review says.
The review also found that policy decisions makers were bombarded with advice from many different groups, while the Communicable Disease Network Australia expert group, which co-ordinated the response to SARS in 2003 ? was sidelined.
?The time seems right to consider the potential role of an independent authoritative national disease control agency in Australia as a clear source of expert advice,? they conclude.
http://www.6minutes.com.au/articles/z1/view.asp?id=525996
While the overall response to the 2009 H1N1 pandemic was good, the outbreak put enormous strain on general practices, emergency departments and public health laboratories, a review by the WA Public Health Division has found.
Writing in the Australian Health Review, public health clinicians say responses to the unfolding pandemic were inconsistent, with school closures recommended in some states, while major public gatherings such as the Victorian the State of Origin were not cancelled.
Communication was also erratic, with GPs on the front line receiving advice from both Federal and State governments as well as from various professional groups.
?There are many possible communication channels into individual practices, either from Commonwealth or State bureaucracies or from general practice divisions, the AMA or the RACGP, which need to be streamlined in future to avoid duplication, confusion and overload,? the review says.
The review also found that policy decisions makers were bombarded with advice from many different groups, while the Communicable Disease Network Australia expert group, which co-ordinated the response to SARS in 2003 ? was sidelined.
?The time seems right to consider the potential role of an independent authoritative national disease control agency in Australia as a clear source of expert advice,? they conclude.
http://www.6minutes.com.au/articles/z1/view.asp?id=525996