A&E sign common in the UK. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)Tasmania's nurses have had enough.
They say lives are being put at risk each day as a result of the State Government's budget cuts and are calling for support from the public. In the last four months, Tasmania has lost more than 84 nurses who have moved interstate to escape the cuts. Ten North-West trained graduates also left the state because there were no positions available.
Emergency departments are overflowing because there aren't enough beds on the wards for patients and nurses are working double shifts, some on their feet for 19 hours.
In 22 years of nursing, emergency department clinical nurse Jan Robinson has never seen things this bad.
Mrs Robinson said the full effects of the budget cuts were only just being felt.
There are more cuts to come as the government looks to save $500million from the health budget over four years.
"Since the cuts, access has been blocked pretty much on a daily occurrence. Ward B was closed back before Christmas and we knew that we wouldn't see the full effects of that right away because theatre sessions were reduced over Christmas," she said.
Mrs Robinson said for the past month there had been patients kept in the ED for more than 24 hours because there were no beds available on the wards. "Studies have shown, and the information tells us, that it is dangerous for people to be in the ED. Mortality rates are higher." Mrs Robinson said a different type of care was required to look after patients once they were treated in the ED and the staff and expertise for that was on the ward. Incidents of ambulances banking up because the ED is full, increased staff sick leave and overtime claims are all being attributed to the cuts.
"Last week in the emergency department, we had seven staff out of about 27 work double shifts. Those shifts ranged from 15-19.5 hours," she said. "We're doing double shifts and getting paid double time, where's the economy in that?"
If things don't improve, she said the public would have to reduce their expectations as service levels could not be maintained with the current situation. Mrs Robinson said nurses had done all they could and needed the public to help them fight the cuts. A public health forum will be held in Devonport tonight - Mrs Robinson and a number of North- West doctors and nurses would be speaking at the forum about the cuts and how it is affecting the region's health care.
The forum will be held at the Devonport Entertainment and Convention Centre, 145-151 Rooke St from 6.30 tonight. Members of the public are invited to attend.
teeth three years ago (Photo credit: darwin.wins)
Ever since I was a small child living in Scotland I have suffered from dental problems. My first recollection of this was at the age of 4. I was laying in the back of my parents car, I had a fuzzy feeling in my head and couldn't feel my mouth at all, which was purpose-knitted by my Grandmother for the occasion....yellow and white, if you don't mind. I still have the scarf.
I digress. The next thing that I can remember was my Grandmother giving me a rather small but sharp-tasting drink. It turned out to be a 'hot toddy,' which is a Scottish term for whiskey, hot water and sugar. It must have worked a treat as the next thing I knew it was the next day.
The reason that I suffered dental problems at an early age was that my teeth grew very rapidly; so rapidly that I had my second set of teeth removed when I was 9. I can recall this dental excursion much more vividly. The dentist, in his wisdom, first tried dental braces. This had the exact opposite effect that he was after. Despite me being ever so pedantic with my dental care several of my teeth began to decay from the constant contact with the dental braces. I recall him clearly that my second set of teeth would have to be removed and that I would most likely have dental problems all my life. He was right.
After the removal of my second set of teeth and my almost phobic care of these teeth, I thought that I had my dental woes behind me. My dental woes stayed behind me until I emigrated with my family to Tasmania in 1979. To this day I do not know what made me do a complete turnaround with my teeth and totally neglect them. With the benefit of hindsight I consider myself extremely lucky. I did not begin suffering further dental problems until I was about 22.
The first dental problems that I began to suffer from were plain old toothaches; nothing that a couple of over-the-counter painkillers couldn't fix. As time progressed the toothaches incrreased in severity and duration. I the began suffering pain in my gums and in my jaw. If you take just one thing from this entry I would like you to go immediately to a dentist if you experience gum pain or jaw pain. Your cranial nerves are extremely close to your jaw area, particularly each side of the middle of your chin. If the pain is caused by infection it will quickly travel to the brain with a devastating or fatal effect.
Again, I digress. This first infection was the first of many to come. I refused to have teeth pulled out unless
it was under a general anesthetic. As time went on, fragments of my teeth began to fall out....and without pain. I knew that this wasn't good but pressed on. It became cyclical....Toothache, painkillers, antibiotcs, toothache, etc, etc.
The final crunch came in 2008. My entire left jaw was swollen out like The Elephant Man and the pain would have been enough to kill an elephant. I went to the local dentist, who is very good. He told me that removal of my entire top teeth was a 'must.' No questions asked. He took an X-Ray and on my next visit he pointed out previous infections by location and year. I was impressed. He wrote me a referral to a Scottish dental surgeon who travels over every 3 months. Luckily I was able to have everything arranged for 5 weeks ahead of that day.
Surgery went well and I made a quicker than expected recovery. There were 2 appointments with my orthodontist to adjust my full top dentures as shrinkage to my top palate hadn't quite settled down.
Having said this, I still have occasional pieces of dental matter pushing through my gum and it isn't 100% painless.
Despite my 'luck,' and that's what I call it, with dentures I do not recommend them unless your dentist deems them a 'must.'
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Since recently dabbling in assisting bands increase their public profile by way of an online music newspaper that was initially called "Music In Tasmania,"I was underwhelmed by the lack of responses that I received after contacting them. The major response was/is a surefire winner. A chap called Mat from "Argusband"contacted me with other websites that the band is on so I have tweeted them with the relevant hashtags with moderate success at this stage.
I didn't bother contacting Rod Fritzas his online presence is making my job pretty easy as far as "Music In Tasmania" goes.
What took me aback was that I received four letters complaining that they hadn't been featured and the bands that I have featured are "....crap...." "rubbish...." "....wankers...." and so forth. Such letters were the first correspondence that I had received from these bands. Needless to say, they're off my schedule.
Having a small population base put me behind the eightball to start with. Having such useless and pointless comments from some bands narrowed my field even more. This saw me launch straight into 'Plan B.' This entails a name and content change for the paper. It is now called "Music And Arts In Tasmania."It is now including tourism, art, photography and theatre as well as the original topic of music.
Where am I going with this blog? I was heading away from my original theme of discouraging musicians from being aloof when nobody knows who they are for a start. Added to this, it's not a good idea to send unprofessional slurs about other bands to the likes of myself with my mere 26 years as a professional musician. My word travels far and fast. Make it work FOR you. It's not rocket science!
If any bands are viewing this entry as criticism, then you're way wrong. It's the music business. Are you into your music as a hobby or are you treating it as a business? If your answer is the latter then I suggest spending some time exploring legitimate and worthwhile to your specific needs. It really is worth it. You don't have to upload you're entire catalogue of music to each site. I do recommend, however, having a consistent bio. and profile picture.
The music business has been around longer than we have so they know all the tricks. You can make yourself stand out simply by being easily reachable via Google search. This is where consistency comes in. People will be more likely to 'join you' on another site if your presentation is consistent with the other sites that you're on.
It takes time for each site to 'generate' you and make you Google friendly. Patience is a virtue.
The best promotion that I can offer you is via "Music And Arts In Tasmania"(below) which is heavily reliant on my Twitteractivity. All you have to do is send an occasional tweet my way and I can get you great mileage; namely in the form of a "featured article." In order to keep up to speed, simply subscribe to the daily edition of my newspaper.
Have you ever been in that hideously frustrating situation where you have everything at your disposal to record a song or piece of music but you don't have a song to write? The general reaction of most songwriters is to sit with pen and paper or at their computer 'willing' a song to emerge. This has such a low success rate that it's barely worth mentioning.
To my way of thinking every songwriter, or every person for that matter, is but a mode of transport for a sequence of lyrics, chords, emotions and arrangements to present themselves in the form of what we term a 'song.'
I have no way of proving this but it is my firm belief that everyone has at least one song in them. Some people have such a passion for creating a song that they go 'the extra hard yard,'....and then some....to make this happen.
Others, on the other hand, for whatever reason do not pursue this aspect of their psyche. I view this a a shame in many ways as so many people have so many songs or stories that come their way but are left to wander off, hopefully to some place where they can be transformed into a musical piece.
A song can be 'sparked' by the most unlikely source. It may be a transient image that becomes so firmly entrenched in the writers' mind that it will eventually come to fruition. It may come from a remark made by a friend, stranger, newsreader, etc. This doesn't necessarily that the writer will write word for word what they have heard. More often than not it is just enough to ignite what is already within the writer.
As writers continue pursue their craft they become more open to external forces and more flexible in adapting their internal notions.
When I first began writing professionally in the late 1980s I had a wealth of poetry stemming back to my days as a kid at school back in Scotland. I found this easy. All that was required was a few
tweaks here and there and finding the best key for our vocalist. This 'easy' phase soon became serious basically through life experience. As serious as it became I still found it easy. My songwriting only became serious in the sense that I was ever-conscious that my 'fresh' material was going to be heard by large audiences.
By the early 1990s my songs became, deliberately, highly politicised as there were some pretty heavy political issues going down in Tasmania at the time. They continued to be well received so I kept my technique the same. As time progressed and the political situation in Tasmania had pretty-well resolved itself I had no 'ignition.' I believe that it was around this time that I really began to fully learn about songwriting for a rockband.
From this point on I maintained my previous attitude to songwriting. I have never written for a target audience or written a song with the aim of pleasing listeners. If I like a song then I'm more than happy enough. The only obstacle that I encountered was getting the band to play a particular track exactly the way that I wanted it to be played, hence the fact that I write, record and mix all tracks myself these days.
Having a multitude of ideas thrown around about regarding how my song should turn out doesn't sit well with me. I've been accused of being stubborn and difficult to work with. I can wear that because such comments usually come from drugged-out 'try-hards' who can barely put pen to paper. I have also been accuse of staying in my 'comfort zone.' I see nothing wrong with being in my comfort-zone. Why leave it if I'm happy being there? Who knows that I may leave it tomorrow if I have an 'ignition' that calls for such a move.
A&E sign common in the UK. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)Tasmania's nurses have had enough.
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