Life-Saving Medication Supply Shortages Concern Hospitals (ContributorNetwork)

Health care consumers of all ages have the potential to be affected by important drug shortages being experienced by hospitals and other health care providers.

You never know when you, or someone about whom you care, may be in need for cardiac arrest medications or other critically needed medications and it turns out the cupboard is bare. Associated Press reporter Lauren Neergaard quotes Dr. Eric Lavonas of the American College of Emergency Physicians as saying, “It’s just a matter of time now before we call for a drug that we need to save a patient’s life and we find out there isn’t any,” in an article published today.

Shortages of medications, especially injectable medications, isn’t new, but it is continuing. 2010 saw a record number of 211 medications being in scarce supply. In the first quarter of this year, 89 drugs made the list of shortages. The United States is not alone in this concern; nations from around the world are also reporting shortages of important medications.

In a Dec. 1 article for health care professionals, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration addresses the agency’s role in real or potential drug shortages of medically necessary medications. The agency defines

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Tokyo slow cafe offers candle-lit quiet in neon jungle

Tokyo, JAPAN : A customer drinks at the "Cafe Slow" in Tokyo on September 17, 2010. Set up by a former UNESCO bureaucrat, Atsushi Yoshioka, the slow cafe, the menu lists organic and local food as well as imported products purchased through "fair trade" systems that aim to protect developing-world producers from corporate exploitation. AFP PHOTO / Yoshikazu TSUNO

Amid the hectic neon sprawl of Tokyo, the world's largest megacity, a renegade band of slow-lifers is bucking the trend with a radical idea -- embracing the sound of silence by candle light.
    
The "Cafe Slow" is a pocket of soothing darkness in the midst of greater Tokyo, an urban expanse of over 30 million that buzzes 24 hours a day and glows brightly even when viewed from space.
    
In Tokyo, Japan's sleepless hub of 21st-century urban life, it also hopes to be a centre for an alternative lifestyle that celebrates organic food, fair trade and other principles of a life in harmony with the planet.
    
The cafe's founder, Atsushi Yoshioka, 63, looks with some pity at the millions of suit-clad "salarymen" who day after day crowd out the city's spaghetti-bowl subway system. He knows, because he was one of them.
    
"I was such a fast person for such a long time," said Yoshioka, chatting recently in his cafe, where the flickering light of honeycomb wax candles lit up a rustic interior fashioned from recycled timber.

"I kept moving in and out, changing place 20 times, because I always wanted a bigger place, a more convenient place," he said of his 30-year international career. "I had more money, but I was also spending it a lot faster."
    
Since he ended his career as a bureaucrat with the UN educational and cultural agency UNESCO, "I haven't worn a tie once," he said. "I no longer squeeze myself into packed rush hour trains either."
    

Automated blood-test system saves time

Major hospital and private technology firm collaborate

A local technology company has created a system that automates much of the procedure involved in blood-testing services at large city hospitals, reducing substantially the need for patients to wait in time-consuming queues.

The system is operating at Bangkok's King Chulalongkorn Memorial Hospital, where blood tests are normally made on about 160,000 people per year. Instead of spending hours waiting for the blood-testing procedure, patients are these days in and out in only 20 minutes - even during rush hours.

TAT campaign aim to help local operators

In an effort to help local tourism-related businesses get back on their feet, the Tourism Authority of Thailand (TAT) has launched the "One Price All Destinations Campaign."

Jutaporn Roengronasa, TAT deputy governor for Europe, Africa, Middle East and the Americas markets, said more than 40 boutique hotels, restaurants, car rental companies, hospitals and spas across the nation are joining the campaign, offering 50 per cent off market prices.

One hotel is offering a rate of Bt 2,200 per night, including breakfast. The price is down from Bt5,000 Bt20,000 per night.

Tourists may make reservations at oneprice.shanghaimansion.com until November 30.

The campaign is aimed at boosting domestic tourism and help operators who were hurt by the political unrest in April and May.

Jutaporn said pricing strategies and sales promotion packages offered through online social networking would attract niche travellers.

She added that the campaign was expected to generate cash flow of at least Bt 20 million in the first three months.