Health

In a one-on-one interview ahead of next week’s election, Bill Shorten has proposed he would, if necessary, set up a new regional processing facility in Papua New Guinea.

Refugees on Manus and Nauru were given hope by the passing of the medivac bill, but the reality is just another layer of bureaucracy added to their lives.

Labor’s cancer plan, backed by a $2.3 billion pledge, has put the healthcare debate on the frontburner, and divided the medical profession.

A recent coroner’s report into the deaths by suicide of Indigenous children and young people in remote WA, linked to intergenerational trauma and racism, mirrors the findings of a 2008 inquiry. With little achieved in the interim years, experts claim the government is not only misdiagnosing the problem but is also unable to come up with productive solutions.

The federal government claims it lacks the constitutional power to fund advocacy activity, although it refuses to release its advice and legal experts uniformly reject the assertion.

The federal government is preparing an action plan after a senate inquiry found stillbirths are occurring disproportionately among Indigenous and migrant women.

The global shortage of an injectable hormone prescribed to men with low levels of testosterone is also having a distressing impact on transgender men and other non-binary transmasculine people, who rely on the drug to manage their physical transition.

While the royal commission into aged care has begun by exposing distressing cases of neglect, experts warn that it is the generations currently unaffected – and uninterested – who must become engaged in order for standards to improve.

Advocates of psychedelic drug research are hoping the psilocybin trial for treating anxiety in the terminally ill, at Melbourne’s St Vincent’s Hospital, is the beginning of a new acceptance for the potential of the field.

Morrison is understood to be the architect of his own political strategy. His friend, former Howard adviser turned lobbyist David Gazard, confirmed the prime minister is choosing to see the medivac legislation as a gift.