Today The Guardian Australia published a piece reporting on Immigration Minister Peter Dutton’s new legislation and the gag order it, in effect, places on the terrible conditions medical staff are witness to in Australia’s detention centres. This legislation is the Border Force Act and comes into effect from tomorrow 1 July. [ + ]

This year’s flu season is being hyped to be the worst yet, according to numerous reports distributed throughout medical and public media. [ + ]

The NPS MedicineWise short film competition #SaveTheScript run in conjunction with Tropfest was held in Sydney last night, with the winners announced. Participants were briefed to make a 45-second film about the threat of antibiotic resistance, and the winning film by OneWay Pictures entitled The Pick Up is an amusing and sexy take on a serious situation. [ + ]

Indexation and the Patient Gap The freeze on diagnostic imaging Medicare rebates has had a significant impact on the affordability of diagnostic imaging for patients. Currently in its 17th year, the freeze on indexation has resulted in the real value of diagnostic imaging Medicare rebates falling, in some cases, by almost 50 per cent. This has resulted in patients paying consistently higher gaps each year, making diagnostic imaging service costs increasingly prohibitive.  Figure 4 reveals the rise in patient gaps for each modality, with the average patient gap rising by over 50% in the last six years. [ + ]

Aged and Community Services Australia (ACSA) has been leading the charge on the current updates to the Aged Care changes that will take effect from 1 July 2015. Providers are required to be registered through the My Aged Care portal for receiving and managing service referrals. [ + ]

Emergency departments personnel, general practitioners and community nurses are often the first to see signs of abuse, and so the Australian medical profession is committing its resources to addressing domestic violence in the community. [ + ]

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Australia’s organ donation levels are low by international standards. At least twenty countries achieve better donation rates than Australia’s 16.1 donors per million population (DPMP), including Belgium (29.9 DPMP), the United States (25.9), France (25.5) and the United Kingdom (20.8). [ + ]

Federal Health Minister Sussan Ley last night announced agreements with the Generic Medicines industry Association (GMiA) and the Pharmacy Guild of Australia which will reduce the price of generic medicines on the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme (PBS) and lead to a greater involvement in public health service consultations on the part of pharmacists. [ + ]

The following article appeared on The Conversation and has been published below with permission. [ + ]

Calling all filmmakers: This year’s Tropfest has teamed up with the NPS MedicineWise to run a community service announcement film competition educating the public on the issue of antibiotic resistance. The winners will share a prize pool of $10,000 in cash. [ + ]

The NPS MedicineWise Choosing Wisely campaign was unveiled this week and while we will be covering it in our upcoming print edition, we have obtained an op-ed discussing the reasoning behind the initiative. [ + ]