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GSK Thailand launches 'medicine bank' to help disaster victims

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Built on an initiative that GSK has undertaken for more than four years, the new programme "From the Heart, For your Health" will improve access to medicine and health care treatment for the underprivileged and victims of disasters.

It will also provide greater knowledge on preventive measures and basic health care, which should reduce the incidence of communicable and epidemic diseases and help create a society of sharing.

GSK has signed a Memorandum of Understanding with the Thai Red Cross Society's Relief and Community Health Bureau (RCHB) to work together on the project.

According to Viriya Chongpaisal, general manager of GSK Thailand, since 2011 GSK has broadened access to medicine for Thai people and improved the quality of their lives. The GSK medicine bank, a programme in collaboration with the Thai Red Cross Society, was introduced to increase access to quality medicines and health care education for underprivileged people and support them.

The Thai Red Cross Society, as a central organisation, has supervised the donation of innovative medicines and vaccines through the GSK medicine bank.

GSK provides a team of physicians, nurses, pharmacists and employee volunteers who make site visits together with the RCHB, Royal Thai Army, participating hospitals and related organisations to help underprivileged people and victims of disasters in provinces nationwide.

"During our field trips together with the RCHB over the past several years, we met affected people in many provinces," said Viriya. "We realised the need for people to receive quality medicine and ... understood the common concern of people in many areas that health is wealth," he said.

"To satisfy the real need of Thai people for access to medicine we introduced the GSK medicine bank for hardship relief programme. We worked with the RCHB to ensure needy people and disaster victims had medicine, health care treatment and prevention, engaging with people who wanted wellness and needed relief from hardship. Knowledge about health and dealing with hardship is needed to encourage healthier, happier lifestyles, prevent and minimise diseases related to public disasters as well as infectious and epidemic diseases, and create a society of sharing, encouraging public engagement in the development of Thailand's health care and public health system."

The GSK's medicine bank for hardship relief programme will run for three years until 2017. Key activities of the initiative include:

Access to medicines: On RCHB's request, GSK will donate health-related products such as solutions for allergic dermatitis and oral health care products for needy people in remote areas, while providing physicians, pharmacists and GSK employees who have volunteered to work with the RCHB to help disaster victims and needy people.

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GSK Thailand launches 'medicine bank' to help disaster victims

Penn Medicine bioethicists call for greater first-world response to Ebola outbreak

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PUBLIC RELEASE DATE:

11-Sep-2014

Contact: Anna Duerr anna.duerr@uphs.upenn.edu 215-349-8369 University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine @PennMedNews

PHILADELPHIA Amid recent discussion about the Ebola crisis in West Africa, Penn Medicine physicians say that high-income countries like the United States have an obligation to help those affected by the outbreak and to advance research to fight the deadly disease including in the context of randomized clinical trials of new drugs to combat the virus. The two new editorials, which will appear "online first" in JAMA on September 11th, are written by faculty members in the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania and the Department of Social Science, Health and Medicine at King's College London.

The first paper, co-written by Ezekiel J. Emanuel, MD, PhD, Penn's Vice Provost for Global Initiatives, the Diane v.S. Levy and Robert M. Levy University Professor and chair of the department of Medical Ethics and Health Policy, and Annette Rid, MD, PhD, at King's College London, contends that there are three independent reasons why high-income countries should "help the affected countries combat the Ebola outbreak and strengthen their health systems and infrastructure in the longer term." These reasons include: "the duty to provide humanitarian assistance; obligations of global justice to ensure, at least, that people everywhere can lead a minimally decent life; and the ethical requirement to provide fair benefits from any research conducted during the epidemic."

With no specific treatments or preventative measures available, and striking in some of the poorest countries with weak health systems, the ongoing Ebola outbreak in West Africa has claimed the lives of almost 2,300 people. More people have now died in the 2014 Ebola epidemic than in all previous outbreaks combined.

Rid and Emanuel's editorial states that everyone has an obligation to help others if the cost or imposition is minimal the Good Samaritan notion pointing out that effective help for Ebola, including containment measures and universal precautions such as gloves and masks, are available at relatively minimal cost for high-income countries like the U.S. In addition, they say that in the interest of global justice, these same countries have obligations to meet the basic needs of people living in extreme poverty, especially because we live in an increasingly interconnected world. Rid and Emanuel also argue that as part of conducting any research in these impoverished countries, it's imperative to ensure that the communities actually receive fair benefits from the research such as strengthening of their health systems.

The second paper, authored by Steven Joffe, MD, MPH, Vice Chair of the Department of Medical Ethics and Health Policy, outlines the considerations and implications of using scarce new Ebola treatment agents in the midst of the epidemic. He looks at how research of these agents can be conducted with an eye towards preventing "the maximum number of deaths during the current outbreak," while calling on policymakers to "seek to optimize knowledge gained for use in confronting future Ebola epidemics."

"Scientifically and ethically justified use of scarce new agents in the midst of the Ebola epidemic, or any other epidemic for which novel agents hold promise, requires reflection on the understandable desire to rescue imminently dying patients," writes Joffe. "Clinicians, investigators and policy makers must deploy novel agents in ways that address pressing scientific questions, prioritize research in populations that will be most scientifically informative as well as most likely to benefit, ensure valid answers through the use of supportive care controls, and protect critical clinical and public health resources from diversion to longer-term aims. By doing so, they can both maximize lives saved in the present epidemic and ensure knowledge gains for the next."

Joffe's editorial asserts that randomized clinical trials are the best way to conduct this research, especially since the supplies of the treatment agents currently under study are so scarce that limited numbers of patients will receive access regardless of the study design. He also cautions against diverting attention or resources from proven therapeutic and public health measures, as doing so could actually increase, not reduce, the death toll.

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Penn Medicine bioethicists call for greater first-world response to Ebola outbreak

Medicine for melancholy

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To me, as a little boy growing up in the 70s, S.D. Burman was just R.D. Burmans father. Yes, R.D. who sang Mehbooba mehbooba in the epochal Sholay and preceded it with Yaadon ki Barat, the film with that wonderful song Chura liye hai tumne jo dil ko. Often, I rode my one-step scooter in the courtyard of my house singing, Mehbooba, mehbooba only to be rebuked by my Ammi, who wouldnt hear of a song as loud, or maybe she considered it raunchy coming from the lips of a nursery school boy. Probably, she was just upset that the boy she had put to sleep on many a night, humming S.D. Burmans Chanda hai to mera sooraj hai tu should so forget the man who composed the song.

Be that as it may, for my young mind, R.D. Burman was the man who could do no wrong. When the Vividh Bharati announcer on the popular Anurodh Geet programme said that the music of the upcoming song had been composed by R.D. Burman, I would momentarily stop trying to hone my bowling skills by hitting a single stump with a ball and sit quiet next to my radio. And S.D. Burman? Even when I became a little familiar with his work I use the word familiar with an element of generosity to myself he remained, in my thoughts, a music director of yesteryear; the distance in time having diminished his genius in my eyes. Until it all changed a few years later. On November 5, 1983, to be precise.

My brother and I stood next to a grave as a body wrapped in white was lowered into it, then looked vacantly as the grave was covered, slab by wooden slab, head to toe. My father was gone. A door shut, never to open again. I took recourse to prayer. My pain eased, the sense of loss not as hurtful.

A few years passed, I started smiling again, often humming along with Hindi film songs even as I studied, walked in the park or travelled. Until one cold December evening, unannounced, unprovoked, a tear moistened my eye as I thought of my father and subconsciously found myself humming, Tum na jaane kis jahan mein kho gaye, hum bhari duniya mein tanha ho gaye. It was cold, semi-dark and drizzling; the rain helping to wash away my tears of sorrow.

The song from the 1951 film Sazaa stayed with me. Only perseverance helped me to get its audiocassette. It was then that I discovered Sachin Dev Burman. Then he became part of my life, part of me. He was no longer dead. He lived on.

So when I got a copy of Sathya Sarans Sun Mere Bandhu Re: The Musical World of S.D. Burman, I treated the book with the reverence one reserves for family elders. With due deference I started reading it, bit by bit. And found a new world open in front of me. Neither as a fan nor as a critic had I ever met S.D. Burman, so I knew him only through his songs. It is a reliable way to know the talents of a man, not his temperament. Sathya filled the gap admirably.

She writes, S.D. Burman would never get angry, he was never heard raising his voice, never known to throw a tantrum. Well, for all his humility and patience, S.D. Burman did get into problems with at least two of his contemporaries, as Sathya informs us frankly in a well researched book replete with anecdotes, instances and occasions one had seldom heard of. Illustrious lyricist Sahir Ludhianvi and he fell out over the songs of Pyaasa, as Sahir had written the songs and S.D. had to set to tune his words. Sahir wanted to be paid a rupee more than S.D. Burman too. The music director walked out of the long relationship, the debate over the supremacy of poem versus song remaining undecided.

Then filmmaker O.P. Ralhan and S.D. had a difference of opinion on using Mukeshs voice for Talash,following which the music director left the film midway, only to return after a chastened director had learnt his lesson. Similarly, he had earlier stuck his neck out for Geeta Roy who repaid his faith with the memorable Mera sundar sapna beeta gaya in Do Bhai, a film where Madan Mohan assisted S.D. These are interesting instances that show the humane side of the genius.

The other, more brilliant aspect shines through when Sathya talks of numerous songs and how they came about. Like the fact that the superhit song of Aradhana, Roop tera mastana is actually inspired from a folk melody and Safal hogi teri aradhana, kahe ko roye is based on a Baul melody. While Wahan kaun hai tera from Guide is done on Bhatiali lines. These little asides, these little gems add great value to a book that is like a river in the plains, quiet, tranquil, profound.

Sathya has helped me dispel my ignorance about the man just as his songs helped heal my wounds. More recently I found myself alone once more. And lonely. Ammi had gone to join my father. I took recourse to prayer. It helped. Then one day on a testing summer afternoon, even as boys in the neighbourhood played Prasoon Joshis ode to mother in Taare Zameen Par, I remembered my Ammi and sang to myself, Meri duniya hai maa. My eyes turned moist. S.D. was part of my life again. My talash continues.

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Medicine for melancholy

Penn medicine study reveals profile of patients most likely to delay hospice enrollment

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PUBLIC RELEASE DATE:

11-Sep-2014

Contact: Greg Richter gregory.richter@uphs.upenn.edu 215-614-1937 University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine @PennMedNews

One in six cancer patients enroll in hospice only during their last three days of life, according to a new study from a team from the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania. Their findings, published online last month in the Journal of Clinical Oncology (JCO) also reveal a profile of patients who may be most at risk of these late admissions.

"Waiting until the final days of life to begin hospice can shortchange patients and their families skipping over many benefits of hospice care and limiting the opportunity to improve patients' quality of life during this stressful time," said study co-author David Casarett, MD, a professor of Medicine and director of Hospice and Palliative care at Penn Medicine. "Our findings point to some reasons why patients may seek hospice care so late in the course of their illness, which we hope will enable us to improve transitions to hospice at a more beneficial point in their care."

The team examined de-identified data from electronic medical records of 64,264 patients in 12 hospices in the Coalition of Hospices Organized to Investigate Comparative Effectiveness network from January 2008 to May 2013. Hospices spanned 11 states, including Pennsylvania, with censuses ranging from 400 to 1,700 patients per day. Of those 64,264 patients, 10,460 had a hospice stay of 3 days or fewer.

The study found several characteristics associated with hospice length of stay of three days or less, including being male, married, younger than 65, and of nonwhite ethnicity. Also, patients with blood cancers and liver cancer were more often than those of oral cancer to be among those admitted within the last three days of life.

Findings indicated that Medicaid and uninsured patients who enrolled in hospice typically did so earlier in the course of their illness than those with commercial insurance or Medicare. The researchers suggest these patterns illustrate which patients may be less able to afford out-of-pocket expenses associated with prolonged aggressive or experimental treatment, or that they may receive care in oncology practices that differ in their aggressiveness of care.

Previous studies found that patients with blood cancers enter hospice less often, overall, than other cancer patients, but this study also examined timing of entry and found those with blood cancers entered hospice later than other cancer patients. The authors theorize this may be due to a dependence on blood products, as hospice typically does not cover blood transfusions, or pursuit of bone marrow or stem cell transplants late in the disease course, which can delay hospice. Also, those with blood cancers especially patients who've undergone bone marrow transplants and are susceptible to life-threatening infections -- may have a more abrupt decline towards end of life than those with other cancers.

The researchers say the marriage association may be because marriage can provide caregiving structure such as help with transportation to medical appointments and assistance with medication -- and emotional support and motivation to support continued treatment. And, they note, some married patients may prolong treatment for their spouse's sake.

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Penn medicine study reveals profile of patients most likely to delay hospice enrollment


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