Why we need more Indigenous Australians to work in mental healthcare

Intentional self-harm among Indigenous Australians aged 15-24 is 5.2 times the rate among non-Indigenous Australians, and the suicide rate for Indigenous Australians is 2.6 times the rate for non-Indigenous Aussies, with some victims being as young as eight. Since the 1980’s, Indigenous suicides and mental health issues have been on the rise, escalating in an increasingly worrying speed. But this has not always been the case; in fact, suicide among Indigenous communities in pre-colonial times hardly existed. The Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody in 1991 found...

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Can tired workers be productive workers?

Sleep. It should be such a simple thing. We do it every day and all it takes to do it is lying down and closing your eyes. Yet if the Internet is to believed, it’s not simple at all. A Google search for “how to sleep better” yields 317 million results. A seemingly endless list of articles and blogs offer tips for falling asleep quickly, sleeping longer and getting better quality sleep. Clearly it’s something we as a society struggle with. The Guardian perhaps puts it best, saying we are in the midst of an “exhaustion epidemic”. This is an issue, because the benefits of sleep, and...

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Reporting more traumatic than the crime

Last year Australians lost $45 million to online scams yet it remains one of the least reported crimes. Surveys have revealed that only a third of all victims of online scams and fraud report the crime in an official capacity. Often the experience of reporting is as traumatic as the victimisation itself and the barriers facing the targeted individual prevent justice from being achieved. Oh, the shame There is often a stigma associated with falling victim to online fraud with a common attitude being that they brought the experience on themselves. The tendency to blame online...

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File sharing: a Swedish religion

Worshiping at the ‘Apple Chapel’ is nothing more than a tongue-in-cheek expression for most of us, but Sweden is literally putting its faith to technology. In 2012 the Swedish government agency Kammarkollegiet officially registered the Church of Kopimism as a religion organisation. The church professes that “information is holy and copying is a sacrament.” “A religion is a belief system with rituals,” the Church’s website reads. “The missionary kopimistsamfundet is a religious group centered in Sweden who believe that copying and the sharing of information is the best and most beautiful...

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Why hospitals need to innovate

It’s official: Our hospitals are facing more demand than they can handle. In some parts of Melbourne, emergency departments are “being deluged with hundreds more patients than they were at the same time last year,” according to The Age. State-wide, Victorian hospitals treated 400, 985 patients between April and June. This is 15, 581 more than were treated in the same period last year. Some hospitals experienced a 15 per cent increase in patient intake. The story is no different in Tasmania. At the Royal Hobart and Launceston General hospitals, elective surgeries have been cancelled...

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The unlikely work colleague

It is easy to feel demotivated, stressed and tired at work. Have you found a way to combat these problems yet? Some Australian workplaces have adopted an increasingly popular method of easing the tensions in the workplace. It includes some fur, some barking, a wet nose, a tail and four legs. Many companies are now introducing pets in the workplace to boost morale in the workplace. These unlikely colleagues will occasionally let out a bark, run around the office wagging their tail, however a study in 2012 has shown employees have reported feeling less stressed around pets in the...

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Redundancies – don’t risk costly repercussions to your organisation

As tough economic times are forcing corporations across Australia to lay off staff in mass redundancies, HR professionals must successfully navigate an employment law minefield, or risk costly repercussions for their companies. Recently, Australia’s workforce is reeling from a string of corporate redundancies, such as the death of retail giant Dick Smith which saw 3,000 jobs lost from its Australian and New Zealand operations, while mining giant Rio Tinto is expected to slash up to 700 local jobs from its WA operations in coming months. Fairfax Media had shared plans to cut 120 editorial...

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What can you do to improve patient flow in your Emergency Department?

The Royal Melbourne Hospital is Victoria’s second largest public health service. The hospital receives more emergency ambulance transports than any other hospital in the state. Last year, there were a total of 65793 patient attendances and close to 30000 inpatient admissions seen at the hospital. Therefore, a new model of care was designed and implemented to improve patient flow with the ED. Professor George Braitberg, Director of Emergency Medicine at the Royal Melbourne Hospital recently sat down with us to share some of the hospital’s successful implementations, particularly, the...

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Australia's Prime Minister "Kanyed" at First Major Appearance Since the 2016 Election

In 2009, Rapper Kanye West interrupted the acceptance speech of singer Taylor Swift when she was accepting the VMA for Best Female Video. Whether he meant to or not he went down in infamy and his name alone now stands for being interrupted. On Wednesday, in his first major economic address since winning a one-seat majority in the July election, Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull was Kayned, by a handful of asylum seeker protesters. In the opening minute of his speech, attention in the room (and those watching the broadcast live on TV and the Internet) was instantly diverted as a protester...

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Boys, trading nude photos without consent is a crime.

I can't believe anyone has to say this. Boys, trading nude photos of women (and under age girls) without their consent is a crime.  While Australian's grapple with the undeniable need for better policies surrounding reducing domestic violence how do we, as a nation, address the forever rising incidences of domestic violence and sex assault? Yesterday media organisation news.com.au broke the horrific story of a website dedicated to swapping and buying nude photographs of high school girls.  The unnamed website has been repeatedly reported to Australian authorities,...

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That time I was famous on LinkedIn

I have had my share of bad jobs. The kind that made me groan to wake up in the morning at the thought of going to work. Jobs that felt like they were going nowhere and had no obvious redeemable features. Thankfully that’s not the situation I’m in now. I love my job and the company I work for (and I’m not just saying that because I’m writing on said company’s blog). I look back on those awful jobs almost fondly – they definitely taught me a lot and ultimately helped me get where I am. Given my experience with bad jobs, my ears perked up when I heard someone complaining about their...

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