SHAFAQNA

SHAFAQNA (Shia International News Association) – As part of a program called BabyTime, Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles recently deployed iPads in its neonatal intensive care unit to enable mothers to see their newborns and interact with hospital staff when they can't do so in person.

Infants are typically placed in the NICU when they are born prematurely or have other complications that require specialized care and supervision. In some circumstances, the condition of the mother might preclude her from being allowed or able enough to visit her newborn in the NICU. Such scenarios might arise when a new mother has post-operative complications, an infection which may pose a risk to the newborn or is otherwise not yet well enough to leave her bed.

Cedars-Sinai notes that approximately 20 to 30 percent of new mothers who undergo C-sections "do not feel well enough to travel from their bed in the Labor and Delivery unit to the NICU for the first 24 to 48 hours."

With the iPad, however, these mothers can now see their newborn and, just as importantly, interact with the nurses and doctors keeping an eye on their baby.

All in all, it's a great way to keep patients more involved and informed while also adding an overall sense of comfort to what can otherwise be a stressful and worrisome situation.

Charles F. Simmons Jr., MD, who chairs the Cedars-Sinai Department of Pediatrics, touted the new program in a press release:

BabyTime will help bridge communication with the family and the baby's medical team and is an excellent use of technology to help new mothers bond with their babies, even when they cannot be physically at their babies' bedside. When doctors and nurses are treating a newborn in the NICU, mom can be right there asking questions and getting updates, even if she's on a different floor.

As one would expect, the way the program works is pretty simple. When a newborn is admitted into the NICU, one iPad is placed next to the baby's incubator while another is delivered to the baby's mother. The press release notes that the mother can log onto BabyTime twice a day.

Over the past few years, Cedars-Sinai has particularly embraced the intersection of technology and healthcare. The hospital previously gave its staff iPhones to facilitate communication amongst nurses and doctors and was also one of the first hospitals to roll out an iPhone app which enables doctors to remotely access EKG results and fetal monitoring.-www.shafaqna.com/English

Source: Tuaw

SHAFAQNA (Shia International News Association) - Former South African President Nelson Mandela has returned home in Johannesburg from a hospital where he spent 10 days under treatment for pneumonia, according to a statement from the office of the presidency.

It was his third trip to a hospital since December, when he was treated during a three-week stay for a lung infection and had a procedure to remove gallstones.

"[Mandela] has been discharged from hospital today, 6 April, following a sustained and gradual improvement in his general condition," the statement said on Saturday.

"The former president will now receive home-based high care."

Mandela had received similar treatment at his home after a hospital stay in December.

During Mandela's hospitalisation, doctors drained fluid from his lung area, making it easier for him to breathe.

Earlier in March, the anti-apartheid leader was admitted to hospital overnight for what authorities said was a successful scheduled medical test.

Mandela became South Africa's first black president in 1994 after elections were held, bringing an end to the system of white racist rule known as apartheid.

After his release from prison in 1990, Mandela was widely credited with averting even greater bloodshed by helping the country in the transition to democratic rule.

The Nobel Peace Prize laureate has been particularly vulnerable to respiratory problems since contracting tuberculosis during his 27-year imprisonment for fighting white racist rule in his country.

South African officials have said doctors were acting with extreme caution because of Mandela's advanced age.

In Saturday's statement, Zuma thanked the medical team and hospital staff that looked after Mandela and expressed gratitude for South Africans and people around the world who had shown support for Mandela.-www.shafaqna.com/English

Source: Al Jazeera

SHAFAQNA (Shia International News Association) -- The building that houses South Africa's highest court, made partly with bricks from an apartheid-era prison, symbolizes what Nelson Mandela hoped his country would become, a haven of tolerance wiser for the nation's past anguish.

Its mosaics, slanting columns, and natural light are meant to welcome people to the Constitutional Court, guardian of a charter devoted to human rights and clean governance. Nearby, a former jail complex where Nelson Mandela was held echoes a time when whites often resorted to violence to impose their rule over the black majority.

It is a neat fusion of history and aspiration. In reality the country once dubbed the "Rainbow Nation" is drifting between poles, cursed by crime and poverty, blessed with talent and resources, a trail-blazer of reconciliation that elected Mandela as its first black president in 1994 elections but still can't find harmony.

The anti-apartheid leader and Nobel laureate returned to his Johannesburg home on Sunday after spending a night in a hospital for what presidential spokesman Mac Maharaj said was a "successful" medical exam. Maharaj said Mandela was "well."

The 94-year-old, however, has grown increasingly frail over the years. In December, he spent three weeks in a hospital, where he was treated for a lung infection and had a procedure to remove gallstones.

The revered leader's brief hospitalization comes at a time when South Africa is struggling to live up to the promise that Mandela has come to symbolize.

"Although he's old, he's a real father to South Africa," said Thembeni Sebego, a resident of the Soweto township in Johannesburg. "We need him very, very, very much. But what can we do? If God calls him, it's time, because he's old now, he's old."

Though he withdrew from public life years ago, Mandela is seen by many compatriots as a hero, a symbol of hope, even a psychological refuge from the social ills and uneven leadership that prevail in South Africa.

The country of 50 million people has much warmth of character. But violence brews in its soul, partly fueled by one of the world's widest gulfs between rich and poor. All walks of life know what it is to be uneasy and alert to surroundings, even if the rates of some violent crimes have fallen.

"You can't walk around at night, there is the fear of rape everywhere," said Mashudu Mfomande, campaign coordinator for Amnesty International in South Africa. "Even in your own home, you don't think you are safe because we have cases of people coming into other people's houses, and have raped t hem. So as a woman in South Africa, it is not a good environment to be in."

A series of shocking events has intensified handwringing over the direction of society.

On Aug. 16, the shooting deaths of 34 striking miners by police at the Marikana platinum mine was a flashback for some who recalled state killings under apartheid. An official inquiry is underway.

On Feb. 2, a 17-year-old was gang-raped and mutilated before she died. On Feb. 14, Oscar Pistorius, the double-amputee athlete who was an inspirational figure around the world, was arrested on charges that he murdered his girlfriend in Pretoria. On Feb. 26, a Mozambican taxi driver was dragged from a South African police vehicle and later died in a police cell.

Last week, President Jacob Zuma sought to counter the image of South Africa as a place in turmoil, saying police were making inroads.

"We also dare not portray our beautiful country as an inherently violent place to live in," he said. "South Africa is a stable, peaceful country. Like all countries, there are elements that conduct themselves in a shocking and unacceptable manner."

Some South African media thought Zuma was in denial. "Are you kidding, JZ?" scoffed a headline in The Citizen newspaper.

Mandela's legacy is secure even though he did not provide solutions to poverty and inequality during his five-year presidency. His sacrifice as a prisoner under apartheid for 27 years, and his generosity of spirit in the tense transition to democracy won international acclaim.

"He means a lot because he brought a lot of changes, a lot of changes here in South Africa and not only in South Africa, but the whole world," said Elvis Vusi, a Soweto resident. "So we need all the leaders, if they can just follow in his footsteps so that each and everybody must live in a peaceful country."

Despite insecurity, South Africa reported 7.5 million tourist arrivals between January and October last year, a 10.4 increase over the same period in 2011, with many coming from Europe. Despite labor strife and credit rating downgrades, resource-rich South Africa will host Brazil, Russia, India and China at the "BRICS" summit this month.

But what is to blame for the persistent problems of a country that has proven it can shine, notably in its triumphant staging of the World Cup soccer tournament in 2010?

One view is that apartheid, which enforced inequality along racial lines, had a role in undercutting the society after it. Endowed with equal rights under the law, many South Africans expected better services and opportunities.

According to Pitika Ntuli, a South African poet and sculptor, the thinking among many South Africans was: "`I used to be insulted, I'm no longer called those things. Now the other things will come.'"

For many, that didn't happen. Expectations faded, anger mounted.

Some commentators say South Africa's new leaders, including Mandela, should have pushed harder to restructure an economy dominated by whites; opponents of that view say it would have alienated industries and set the country on a downward path similar to that of Zimbabwe after independence.

The African National Congress, the liberation party that has dominated since the end of apartheid, has also struggled to deliver on promises. It is a frontrunner ahead of 2014 elections, but corruption scandals and other missteps have hurt democracy's evolution.

"What has occurred since 1994 is the steady development of a fusion between party and state, accompanied by a refusal fully to accept the legitimacy of opposition parties," David Welsh and Paul Hoffman wrote in a commentary on the website of the Institute for Accountability in Southern Africa, a non-profit group.

On Sunday, the Nelson Mandela Center of Memory, which promotes the former president's ideas, tweeted something he once said: "I would venture to say that there is something inherently good in all human beings."

Mandela was also a realist and recognized the challenges that South Africa would face. The rest of his line goes:

"... deriving from, among other things, the attribute of social consciousness that we all possess. And, yes, there is also something inherently bad in all of us, flesh and blood as we are, with the attendant desire to perpetuate and pamper the self."

www.shafaqna.com/English

SHAFAQNA (Shia International News Association) – Former South African president Nelson Mandela has been admitted to hospital for routine tests, says the South African government.

The government says there is no reason to be alarmed about the well-being of the 94-year-old national hero.

RELATED: Nelson Mandela released from hospital

A message on the website of President Jacob Zuma said this is a "scheduled medical check-up to manage existing conditions in line with [Nelson Mandela's] age."

Presidential spokesman Mac Maharaj said in a statement that Mandela went to a hospital in Pretoria, the capital, on Saturday afternoon.

In the past two years, he has been admitted to hospital on three times. In January 2011, he was treated for a chest infection.

Mandela spent most of last December in hospital for treatment of a lung infection. He also had gallstones removed.

He was expected to receive further treatment at home after being released in late December.

When Mandela was released, President Jacob Zuma declared that Mandela looked "much better" and that doctors were pleased with his progress.

In 2001, Mandela underwent radiation therapy for prostate cancer.www.shfaqna.com/English

Source: CBC

SHAFAQNA (Shia International News Association) – The supply of new hospital beds tends to raise the demand for them, not the other way around, according to a new study.

Researchers examined all 1.1 million admissions at Michigan’s 169 acute-care hospitals in 2010 and found a strong correlation between bed availability and use, even when accounting for myriad factors that may lead to hospitalization. These factors include nature of the ailment, health insurance coverage, access to primary care, and patient mobility.

In other words, the simple fact the beds were available led to higher use, says Paul Delamater, lead author and a researcher in Michigan State University’s department of geography. The study appears in the journal PLOS ONE.

“The findings support the regulation of hospital beds—of keeping the number of hospital beds aligned with the health care needs of the population,” Delamater says.

Building new hospitals in Michigan requires approval from the state’s Certificate of Need Program. Across the nation, 35 states have some form of CON program, with 28 states specifically regulating the supply of acute care hospital beds.

In Michigan, there are too many hospital beds for the population, data show, and the CON Program in the past decade has rejected at least three requests for new hospitals in wealthy Oakland County.

Two of those hospitals were built only after their respective health systems won special legislative approval. In the latest case, McLaren Health System is currently appealing the CON Program’s denial for a new hospital in Clarkston.

“Certificate of Need curbs unnecessary hospital construction and the higher health care costs that creates,” Delamater says.

The study, which uses statistical models of the state of Michigan, is the first examination of hospital bed availability and use that addresses the geographic nature of the relationship. Unlike previous studies, the researchers modeled the entire acute care hospital system while accounting for the travel- and health-related behavior of patients.

The model can be replicated in other states.

“It has immediate statewide and potentially national implications,” says Joe Messina, a study author and professor of geography. “To be able to demonstrate that the number of hospital beds predicts use—people have talked about this for years, but no one has been able to show it until now.”-www.shfaqna.com/English

Source: Futurity

SHAFAQNA (Shia International News Association) – Fifteen-year-old Pakistani activist Malala Yousafzai, who was shot in the head by the Taliban in October, has been discharged from a British hospital.

The hospital said in a statement issued on Friday, "Malala Yousafzai was discharged from Queen Elizabeth Hospital Birmingham as an inpatient on Thursday to continue her rehabilitation at her family’s temporary home in the West Midlands".

The statement added the teenager “is well enough to be treated by the hospital as an outpatient for the next few weeks”.

On October 9, 2012, Yousafzai was shot by Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) militants in the town of Mingora for speaking out against the fanatics and promoting education for girls and women in her home region, the Swat Valley of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province.

A day after she was shot, a bullet which hit Yousafzai’s skull was removed by surgeons in Peshawar.

On October 15, Yousafzai was flown to Britain for specialist care at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Birmingham after Pakistani doctors said she needed treatment for a damaged skull and “intensive neuro-rehabilitation.”

In 2009, Malala Yousafzai rose to fame for writing about life in the Swat Valley under the TTP. She later received Pakistan’s National Peace Award for bravery and was also nominated for an international children's peace award.

On December 10, 2012, Pakistan and UNESCO unveiled the Malala Plan, which aims to get all the girls in the world into school by the end of 2015.- www.shfaqna.com/English

Source: Irib

SHAFAQNA (Shia International News Association) -- Malala Yousafzai, the 15-year-old Pakistani schoolgirl who survived an assassination attempt by Taliban militants, was discharged from Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Birmingham, England, on Thursday.

Ms. Yousafzai “is well enough to be treated by the hospital as an outpatient for the next few weeks,” the hospital said in a statement. “She is still due to be readmitted in late January or early February to undergo cranial reconstructive surgery as part of her long-term recovery, and in the meantime she will visit the hospital regularly to attend clinical appointments.”

The complete text of the statement was posted on the hospital’s Web site, along with video of the girl walking out of her hospital room under her own power.

Dr. David Rosser, the hospital’s medical director said: “Malala is a strong young woman and has worked hard with the people caring for her to make excellent progress in her recovery.”

Ms. Yousafzai became an outspoken advocate for the education for girls in Pakistan at the age of 11, when the BBC’s Urdu-language service published her “Diary of a Pakistani Schoolgirl.” The blog chronicled life under Taliban rule, after her home in the Swat Valley was overrun by the Islamist militants in 2009. (Later that year, the girl and her father were featured in a documentary by my colleague Adam Ellick.)

She was shot in the head by a militant in October and airlifted to England for treatment the same month.

Her father, Ziauddin, has been appointed to a three-year term as Pakistan’s education attaché in Birmingham, ITV News reported on Wednesday.

www.shafaqna.com/English

SHAFAQNA (Shia International News Association) -- US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has been sent to the hospital with a blood clot stemming from a concussion she suffered earlier this month and is being assessed by doctors, a State Department spokesman said.

"In the course of a follow-up exam today, Secretary Clinton's doctors discovered a blood clot had formed, stemming from the concussion she sustained several weeks ago," spokesman Philippe Reines said in a statement on Monday.

"She is being treated with anti-coagulants and is at New York-Presbyterian Hospital so that they can monitor the medication over the next 48 hours," Reines said. "Her doctors will continue to assess her condition, including other issues associated with her concussion. They will determine if any further action is required."

Clinton, 65, has been off work since her return from her last foreign trip on December 7, although her staff has said she has been working from home.

Her lengthy absence from public life had sparked claims from some of her fiercer critics that she is trying to avoid testifying in a congressional investigation into a deadly attack on a US mission in Libya.

Earlier this month, the State Department said Clinton had contracted a bad stomach virus during her five-day stay in Europe. She had to cancel a planned trip to North Africa and Abu Dhabi due to the illness.

A week later, Clinton's doctors said she had become severely dehydrated due to the effects of the stomach bug and had fainted, suffering a concussion.

They recommended she rest at home and avoid - through mid-January - the high-intensity travel she had been accustomed to taking as secretary of state.

Clinton has flown almost a million miles since taking office four years ago, visited 112 countries and spent some 400 days in a plane.

Her health kept her from testifying on December 20 to US lawmakers about the attack on the US diplomatic post in the eastern Libyan city of Benghazi on September 11.

The assault, in which the US ambassador and three other American officials were killed, sparked a political firestorm in the United States, and Republicans criticized Clinton's absence from the hearings, calling on her to testify in January.

Clinton, who is due to step down from her post in early 2013, also stayed away from the White House last week when President Barack Obama nominated her replacement, veteran Senator John Kerry.

She issued a statement paying tribute to her successor.

www.shafaqna.com/English

SHAFAQNA (Shia International News Association) -- An Indian woman whose gang rape in New Delhi triggered violent protests died of her injuries on Saturday in a Singapore hospital, bringing a security lockdown in Delhi and recognition from India’s prime minister that social change is needed.

The Indian capital braced for a new wave of protests, closing metro stations and banning vehicles from the city centre district where young activists had converged to demand improved women’s rights. The news came in the early hours of the morning in India and there were no signs of protests as morning broke.

The 23-year-old medical student, severely beaten, raped and thrown out of a moving bus in New Delhi two weeks ago, had been flown to Singapore in a critical condition by the Indian government on Thursday for specialist treatment.

“We are very sad to report that the patient passed away peacefully at 4:45 a.m. on Dec 29, 2012 (2045 GMT Friday). Her family and officials from the High Commission (embassy) of India were by her side,” Mount Elizabeth Hospital Chief Executive Officer Kelvin Loh said in a statement.

Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh said in a statement he was deeply saddened by the death and described the emotions associated with her case as “perfectly understandable reactions from a young India and an India that genuinely desires change.

“It would be a true homage to her memory if we are able to channelize these emotions and energies into a constructive course of action.“

Delhi’s Chief Minister, Sheila Dikshit, expressed revulsion.

“It is a shameful moment for me not just as a chief minister but also as a citizen of this country,“ she said.

The woman, who has not been identified, and a male friend were returning home from the cinema by bus on the evening of Dec. 16 when, media reports say, six men on the bus beat them with metal rods and repeatedly raped the woman. The reports say a rod was used in the rape, causing internal injuries. Both were thrown from the bus. The male friend survived the attack.

Singh’s government has been battling criticism that it was tone-deaf to the outcry that followed the attack and was heavy handed in its response to the protests in the Indian capital.

Most rapes and other sex crimes in India go unreported and offenders are rarely punished, women’s rights activists say. But the brutality of the Dec. 16 assault sparked public outrage and calls for better policing and harsher punishment for rapists.

VEHICLES BARRED FROM DELHI CITY CENTRE

T.C.A. Raghavan, the Indian High Commissioner to Singapore, told reporters hours after the woman’s death that a chartered aircraft would fly her body back to India on Saturday, along with members of her family. The woman’s body had earlier been loaded into a van at the hospital and driven away.

In New Delhi, the Joint Commissioner of Traffic Police, Satyendra Garg, told NDTV news channel that residents and commuters were advised to avoid the city centre.

The case has received blanket coverage on cable television news channels. Some Indian media have called the woman “Amanat“, an Urdu word meaning “treasure“.

Talking to reporters earlier on Saturday, Raghavan declined to comment on Indian media reports accusing the government of sending her to Singapore to minimise the possible backlash in the event of her death.

Some Indian medical experts had questioned the decision to airlift the woman to Singapore, calling it a risky manoeuvre given the seriousness of her injuries. They had said she was already receiving the best possible care in India.

But Dr B.D. Athani, medical superintendent of the New Delhi hospital where she had initially been treated, told Indian television the intention was to give the victim the best chance of surviving in what he described as “an extreme case“.

“Her condition was very critical from day one. We had managed what best we could do at our end ... she had to be shifted to a centre with much better facilities.“

On Friday, the Singapore hospital had said the woman’s condition had taken a turn for the worse. It said she had suffered “significant brain injury“. She had already undergone three abdominal operations before arriving in Singapore.

The suspects in the rape - five men aged between 20 and 40, and a juvenile - were arrested within hours of the attack and are in custody. Media reports say they are likely to be formally charged with murder next week.

Commentators and sociologists say the rape tapped into a deep well of frustration many Indians feel over what they see as weak governance and poor leadership on social and economic issues.

Many protesters have complained that Singh’s government has done little to curb the abuse of women in the country of 1.2 billion. A global poll by the Thomson Reuters Foundation in June found that India was the worst place to be a woman because of high rates of infanticide, child marriage and slavery.

New Delhi has the highest number of sex crimes among India’s major cities, with a rape reported on average every 18 hours, according to police figures. Government data show the number of reported rape cases in the country rose by nearly 17% between 2007 and 2011.

www.shafaqna.com/English

SHAFAQNA (Shia International News Association) - Egypt’s ousted President Hosni Mubarak was moved to an army hospital from his prison clinic, reported Al Arabiya, following the country’s top prosecutor-general decision on Thursday.

“Mubarak will head to Maadi military hospital”, an army source told Reuters. Maadi is a suburb of Cairo.

It is not yet clear when Mubarak will be moved. The exact medical recommendations that prompted the decision are also unknown, security sources told Reuters.

Prosecutor-General Talaat Ibrahim had received a report from the Tora Prison Medical Committee that “recommended transporting Mubarak to another well-equipped prison”, state-owned daily al-Ahram quoted Hassan Yassin, official spokesperson of General Prosecution, as saying.

Mubarak, who ruled Egypt for three decades, was forced out in February 2011 after a popular uprising.

In June, he was sentenced to life in prison for his role in killing protesters during the uprising. He was admitted to a prison hospital that month following a health crisis.- www.shfaqna.com/English