Category: Inequity

Medical errors kill scores each year, especially women and minorities, research shows | NBC News (reported Jan 2024)

In a study published Jan. 8 in JAMA Internal Medicine, researchers found that nearly 1 in 4 hospital patients who died or were transferred to intensive care had experienced a diagnostic error. Nearly 18% of misdiagnosed patients were harmed or died.

In all, an estimated 795,000 patients a year die or are permanently disabled because of misdiagnosis, according to a study published in July in the BMJ Quality & Safety periodical.

Some patients are at higher risk than others.

Women and racial and ethnic minorities are 20% to 30% more likely than white men to experience a misdiagnosis, said Dr. David Newman-Toker, a professor of neurology at Johns Hopkins School of Medicine and the lead author of the BMJ study. “That’s significant and inexcusable,” he said.

Researchers call misdiagnosis an urgent public health problem. The study found that rates of misdiagnosis range from 1.5% of heart attacks to 17.5% of strokes and 22.5% of lung cancers.

Source: Medical errors kill scores each year, especially women and minorities, research shows

Medical Errors Third Leading Cause of Death in the US | Dr Michael M Wilson(originally reported in BMJ in 2016)

According to analysis published in the BMJ (formerly the British Medical Journal), medical errors claim the lives of 251,000 Americans each year. This puts it higher on the list than accidents, strokes, respiratory disease, Alzheimer’s, and more. The only conditions that cause more deaths are heart disease and cancer. Medical errors are considered to include everything from issues in the hospital system, communication breakdowns, incompetent doctors, drug medication errors, and more.

The study was conducted by Martin Makary, who serves as a professor of surgery for the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. One of his major concerns is the fact that there are too many people who are dying as a result of the care they receive rather than the condition for which they sought medical attention. Medical errors have been a topic of discussion over the past two decades or so, with an Institute of Medicine Report in 1999 calling preventable medical mistakes an epidemic. This has led to plenty of discussions regarding how this can be fixed.

Part of the study showed that the 251,000 annual deaths is equivalent to 700 deaths a day. This means of all deaths in the United States each year, 9.5% are the result of a medical error. There are some that believe the number could be more, but with the way cause of death is currently labeled, there is a potential that many deaths are not being accurately reported.

[Ed: then see next article for particular significance for women].

Source: Medical Errors Third Leading Cause of Death in the US

https://www.bmj.com/content/353/bmj.i2139.full

 

Female-led companies are less likely to go bust, new research shows | MSN

Despite progress in recent years, the number of female CEOs in the UK remains much lower than their male counterparts.

Yet, new research reveals that women-run SMEs are significantly less likely to face insolvency than those led by men, suggesting that female founders might be better at keeping their businesses steady.

The study revealed that nine times as many companies are run by men than women. Construction businesses are more likely to be run by men, while education businesses are predominantly female-dominated.

Moreover, despite the financial obstacles female founders face when starting a business, many remain optimistic about the growth of their business, as nearly two thirds of women (65%) expect their businesses to grow in the next year, while 40% expect a 20% increase in income.

In March 2024, research revealed that companies with more than 30% female executives were more likely to outperform those with less. Organisations with a good level of gender diversity were also 25% more likely to achieve above-average profitability than companies with less diverse teams.

While the above figures paint a positive picture for women-led businesses, it’s impossible to ignore the problem of the UK’s current gender pay gap, and the lack of investment funding for female-led businesses compared to their male counterparts.

Source: Female-led companies are less likely to go bust, new research shows

Women are less likely to receive CPR than men. Training on manikins with breasts could help | The Conversation

Heart-related diseases are the leading cause of death for women worldwide. But bystanders are less likely to intervene to perform CPR on a woman than a man.

Could this partly be because CPR training dummies (known as manikins) don’t have breasts? Our new research looked at manikins available worldwide to train people in performing CPR and found 95% are flat-chested.

Anatomically, breasts don’t change CPR technique. But they may influence whether people attempt it – and hesitation in these crucial moments could mean the difference between life and death.

You don’t need to remove someone’s bra to perform CPR. But you may need to if a defibrillator is required.

A defibrillator is a device that applies an electric charge to restore the heartbeat. A bra with an underwire could cause a slight burn to the skin when the debrillator’s pads apply the electric charge. But if you can’t remove the bra, don’t let it delay care.

Source: Women are less likely to receive CPR than men. Training on manikins with breasts could help

COP29 row breaks out with Vatican over gender rights – BBC News

The Vatican has blocked discussions over women’s rights at the UN climate summit following a row over gay and transgender issues, sources have told BBC News.

Pope Francis’ representatives have aligned with Saudi Arabia, Russia, Iran, and Egypt to obstruct a deal which would have provided more support, including financial help, for women at the forefront of climate change, Colombia’s environment minister told the BBC.

Charities including ActionAid said it is crucial a deal is reached as the UN estimates women and girls currently make up 80% of those displaced by climate change.

Countries at this year’s COP29 climate summit in Azerbaijan were due to update the ten-year old UN action plan to make sure that any work on climate change took account of the experiences of women and channelled more money to them.

For a decade it has been called the Lima Work Programme on Gender.

But the Vatican, Saudi Arabia, Russia, Iran and Egypt now do not want any reference to “gender” – over concerns it could include transgender women, and want references to gay woman removed, the BBC has been told by charities observing the talks and negotiators from other countries.

This has stalled the whole deal on progressing women’s access to support in the face of climate change, they say.

When asked why the Vatican and others were making the intervention now, after nearly a decade, one country negotiator told the BBC: “It is part of a broader global backlash against women’s rights and LGBTQ+ rights.”

Source: COP29 row breaks out with Vatican over gender rights – BBC News

Iraq to lower the ‘age of consent’ for girls to nine |MSN

Iraq is poised to slash the legal age of consent from 18 to to nine, allowing men to marry young children.

The proposed legal change also deprives women of rights to divorce, child custody and inheritance.

Iraq’s parliament, which is dominated by a coalition of conservative Shia Muslim parties, is preparing to vote through an amendment that would overturn the country’s “personal status law”.

Iraq already has high rates of child marriage. According to the United Nations Children’s Fund (Unicef), some 28 per cent of women in Iraq are married by 18.

This is because of a loophole in the personal status law which allows religious leaders, instead of the courts, to officiate thousands of marriages each year – including those involving girls as young as 15, with permission from the father.

The amendment would legitimise these religious marriages, putting young girls at increased risk of sexual and physical violence, as well as being denied access to education and employment, according to human rights watch.

Source: Iraq to lower the ‘age of consent’ for girls to nine

Vanessa was ‘kidnapped’ by the family policing system aged 10. Now, she’s fighting for other First Nations families | The Conversation

Her memoir, Long Yarn Short, imprinted on my mind and heart. In a warm, inviting voice, this proud Bundjalung Widubul-Wiabul woman paints an unflinchingly honest picture of her life as a child stolen by the state, at just ten years old, in the mid-2000s. She describes being “tucked up in bed” by her dad and “about to close [her] eyes” when it happened.

“There was no reason why Mum could not take me,” Turnbull-Roberts writes. Her mother’s mental illness had been “used against her to justify the removal” of the first of her three children, Turnbull-Roberts’ eldest brother. Since Turnbull-Roberts was conceived, her mother had feared her being taken as well. “In my world, she was my mum, my everything,” Turnbull-Roberts writes.

She chooses her words carefully and poignantly, never buying into the euphemisms and lies of a system built to destroy her connection to kin and culture. They aren’t “case workers”, they are “kidnappers”. They aren’t “removing” her, they are “kidnapping”.

As I read, Turnbull-Roberts never let me forget she was ripped away from community, family and warmth, to be neglected and abused by a system that proclaimed it saved her from neglect and abuse.

While Turnbull-Roberts educates readers about the racist foundations these institutions are built on, the book never becomes dry or academic. Instead, she personalises these facts, showing how pathologising Indigenous parenting and culture results in unfair judgements of neglect and abuse. She points out: “if a kid from a wealthy family has dirty clothes, they had a fun day; however if a child from a poor family has dirty clothes, they must be neglected.”

She also describes some of her foster carers taking children for the payments they bring.

At the same time, the system unfairly judges people like her parents. First Nations culture, mental health issues and poverty struggles are all deemed “failures” that families must be punished for.

Turnbull-Roberts highlights our society’s thirst for punitive measures when anyone we deem “less than” struggles. Her book is a chilling reality check on our skewed view of “justice” and “support”.

Source: Vanessa was ‘kidnapped’ by the family policing system aged 10. Now, she’s fighting for other First Nations families

Mothers to take DWP to court over ‘inhumane’ benefit rules on non-consensual conception | Universal credit | The Guardian |UK

High court approves judicial review of rules denying some women exception to two-child limit on universal credit.

Two mothers who had children as a result of rape or coercion by former partners have been given permission to take the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) to court for being denied exception to the two-child limit on universal credit.

The limit, which restricts support through universal credit (UC) to the first two children in a family, has an exception when a child has been conceived non-consensually, but this only applies to third or subsequent children in a household.

One of the mothers granted permission by the high court to bring a judicial review challenging the UK-wide rules said: “If I had been raped after my first two children were born, the exceptions would be applied, so basically [the DWP ministers] are telling me that I was raped at the wrong time.”

Source: Mothers to take DWP to court over ‘inhumane’ benefit rules on non-consensual conception | Universal credit | The Guardian

Iran detains woman who stripped to her underwear at university in apparent protest – ABC News

A woman at an Iranian university stripped down to her underwear in an apparent act of protest after university security forces reportedly violently stopped her for not wearing a headscarf.

The Islamic Republic of Iran has a history of taking protesters to psychiatric centers, claiming their acts of resistance are due to their unstable mental health.

A growing number of Iranian women have been pushing back against laws requiring headscarves since the deadly nationwide protests in September 2022.

The protests followed the tragic death of Mahsa Amini, a young Iranian Kurdish woman who was taken into morality police custody for allegedly not fully complying with hijab rules. The 22-year-old Kurdish woman’s death in police custody triggered Iran’s longest anti-government protests since the 1979 Islamic Revolution.

Human rights groups say more than 500 people were killed in those demonstrations and, according to the Islamic Republic News Agency, over 20,000 people were arrested.

Source: Iran detains woman who stripped to her underwear at university in apparent protest – ABC News

‘Precious, princess’: Health minister warns GPs to brace for women’s pain inquiry findings | The Age

Victorian health minister Mary-Anne Thomas is warning doctors to brace themselves for the results of Australia’s first inquiry into women’s pain, saying it revealed “a misogynist view that pain is part of women’s burden”.
Thomas said she was shocked to learn what more than 13,000 women and girls who shared stories with the inquiry experienced, and that many had serious pain dismissed or had been “gaslit” by being told they had mental health issues.
Women testified saying things such as, “I just want to get off the merry-go-round of antidepressants and iron infusions” prescribed for pain.
Thomas said some women felt they were treated as drug addicts when they asked for relief. She was challenged by researchers for suggesting misogyny may be a factor the gender-pain gap.
In its submission to the 11-month inquiry, the Australian Nursing and Midwifery Federation included incidents of health workers having their own pain treated dismissively and witnessing women receiving gender-biased treatment.
It received more than 800 responses in four days to a member survey on women’s pain.
Of 89 per cent of nurses and midwives who had experienced acute pain, two-thirds felt “dismissed by health professionals”, and 53 per cent said the response was negative.
A nurse on a mixed specialty surgical ward said gynaecology patients who describe “10/10 pain” were given paracetamol as a first-line treatment to “wait and see if it helps”, while other surgical patients “are given two to three lines of analgesia charted immediately at any instance of pain”.
Another told of “multiple colleagues judging young female patients’ subjective pain scores, calling them ‘precious’, ‘princess’ or ‘overreacting’.”
The inquiry is due to hand its recommendations to the Victorian Women’s Health Advisory Council by December and will be released in early 2025.

Source: ‘Precious, princess’: Health minister warns GPs to brace for women’s pain inquiry findings