In brief

strongly discouraging smoking whilst pregnant. A new dedicated preterm birth prevention clinic was established at KEMH where all the interventions were promoted. He said the benefit was strongest in women who would not usually be identified as high risk, indicating that the program should be applied to the entire population of pregnant women, not just those with risk factors. The study also showed a significant reduction in preterm births in the Kimberley. “The reduction could be attributed to the introduction of free progesterone treatment – which is usually expensive – and the commencement of a midwifery continuity of care program which has been proven to prevent pregnancy complications,” John said. Workers comp

WA health workers will get special workers compensation protection as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. The state government will introduce a Bill to ease the burden on health care workers who contract COVID-19 and require access to workers' compensation entitlements. The Act will be amended to establish a presumption of work-related injury for specified diseases suffered in specified classes of employment. Regulations will address health care workers suffering COVID-19 as a priority, this means workers will not be required to go through lengthy and costly claim investigations to prove they contracted the disease at work.

WA supports pill testing

The Australian Institute of Health and Welfare’s (AIHW) annual national drug survey has been released with a state-bystate snapshot. Interesting, 55% West Australians supported pill testing at designated sites and 44% supported supervised drug consumption facilities.

Nationally, fewer people are smoking (down to 11% in 2019 from 12.2% in 2016). However, this trend was bucked in WA with a slight increase in the number of daily smokers (11.9% from 11.5%). Fewer people in their 20s and 30s are smoking. Those who are smoking are generally smoking less and Emerging topic: Medicinal cannabis more are rolling their own. Habitual e-cigarette use is up from 31% in 2016 to 39% in 2019. In WA 12.2% of vapers were smokers (from 6.6% to 12.2%) and 73% of WA people surveyed have consumed alcohol in the past 12 months. There were slight declines in the proportions of people drinking daily and weekly between 2016 and 2019. As for other drug use in WA, ecstasy and amphetamine use was slightly less Emerging topic: (2.1% from 2.7% for amphetamine) and cocaine use is up (1.6% to 2.4%). The infograph below gives some interesting insight into medicinal cannabis Medicinal cannabis use. In WA, illicit cannabis use has slightly declined from 11.6% to 11.2%.

Quick facts

6.8% of people who used cannabis only used it for medical purposes.

3.9% of those who used cannabis for medical purposes obtained it by prescription.

Older people were more likely than younger people to use cannabis only for medical purposes. About 1 in 2 people who used cannabis for medical purposes had chronic pain.

People who did not use cannabis for medical purposes were twice as likely to use another illicit drug than a person who only used cannabis for medical purposes. Dr Sophie Davison, who is currently deputy chief psychiatrist, has been appointed as Western Australia's first Chief Medical Officer, Mental Health. She will be acting in the role for the next six months. She will report directly to the Mental Health Commissioner and will play a key role in the newly created Mental Health Executive Committee. This group comprises chief executives and clinical leadership from the WA Health Service Providers and the WA Department of Health.

After a nine-month search Dr Matthew Miles has been appointed CEO of the RACGP. Dr Miles was previously MS Research Australia’s chief executive and a former recipient of the coveted Harvard Club of Australia not-for-profit (NFP) fellowship and shortlisted for the NFP CEO of the Year 2016 by CEO Magazine.

WA Department of Health has granted funding to UWA’s respiratory physician Dr Anna Tai to explore the use of convalescent plasma in early treatment of COVID-19 patients. A/Prof Roslyn Francis and her team will examine whether inflammation associated with COVID-19 persists in the lungs and blood vessels after a person has recovered from the virus.

Professor Barry Marshall’s team working on UWA’s Noisy Guts Project has been recognised at the inaugural Nature Spinoff Prize established by Nature Research and Merck. The project looks at a device that monitors and analyses gut noises to determine cause and severity of any gut disorders. Commercialisation of the device is in the wings.