Digital mental health gets fed backing
The Australian government has announced A$135.2 million ($86.5 million) investment in digital mental health projects.
Based on a media release, 12 mental health services will receive funding to provide access to digital and online mental health support. These include St. Vincent’s Hospital's mental health programme for culturally and linguistically diverse communities.
The Alfred launches robotic surgery
The Alfred Hospital in Melbourne, Victoria has recently implemented a robotic surgical system in its surgery centre.
The Alfred Centre started using the da Vinci Xi Surgical System, which it named "Royce" after the hospital's former director of Urology. It is used to assist surgeons with a range of minimally invasive procedures for cancer and cardiothoracic cases.
Jeremy Grummet, associate professor and director of Urology, expects the robotic system to contribute to lower complications and faster recovery for surgery patients.
This is The Alfred's second robotic system after Magellan, which was introduced in 2016.
SA Health aged care placement queue dashboard goes live
SA Health has launched a new portal on its website displaying the queue for placements in residential aged care facilities across the state.
The portal, which also shows bed occupancy across facilities, went live following the release of a report from the Productivity Commission highlighting South Australia having the longest waits for public aged care beds among states. The report notes that seniors are waiting 253 days to be placed at a facility, which is double the national average of 136 days.
According to SA Health, the portal will be updated weekly and highlight the impact of delays in aged care placement.