Toilets are taken for granted in the industrialised west but still are a luxury for a third of the world's people who have no access to them, according to a report by the World Health Organisation and Unicef.more
Motorists should face compulsory sight tests every 10 years to stay on the road, leading eye experts have said. More than a third (35%) of optometrists have seen patients in the last month who continue to drive despite being told their vision is below the legal standard, according to the Association of Optometrists (AOP).more
Black cab drivers across the capital will soon be trained to respond to terror attacks and medical emergencies. London's 17,500 drivers will be taught how to deal with situations such as acid attacks, choking, strokes and severe bleeding.more
Recently, the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) published a report regarding different aspects of health. Since 1970, all OECD countries have enjoyed a 10-year increase in life expectancy.more
The changing age profile of mothers is captured in the CSO's Vital Statistics annual report 2015, which also shows a drop in the overall birth rate, down from 14.6 per 1,000 in 2014 to 14 per 1,000 in 2015. In fact, the number of children born in Ireland in 2015, at 65,536, represents the lowest number of births since 2006 (65,425 births).more
Teaching and nursing are among the most stressful jobs in the UK, a new study has revealed. Almost of half of sick days taken across Britain are as a result of work-related stress and those working in public service industries including welfare, healthcare and education are worst affected, shocking figures showed.more
Ireland's foodservice market is now valued at a record 7.8bn euro. Bord Bia's latest report shows the sector, which includes more than 33,000 outlets, continues to grow with a strong demand for take away and convenience services.more
Turns out the NHS can be pretty boss when it comes to teaching people important lessons. Like showing them how asking for blood for specific ethnic groups is not racist at all.more
Irish companies should offer six extra days in holidays for non-smokers according to a leading psychologist. Jason O'Callaghan from The D4 Clinic in Dublin claims non-smokers should be entitled to the benefit, to make up for time they work when people take smoke breaks.more
Free glasses and subsidised teeth-cleaning treatments are among the benefits that have been added to the State's treatment benefit scheme. The services are now available to qualified PRSI contributors including the self-employed, and their dependent spouses or partners. The cost of extending the benefits is expected to be more than €70 million in a full year.more
In Poland, the running trend is dominated by the middle class. Women run mainly for health, rivalry is more important for men - said Dr. Jakub Ryszard Stempień from the Medical University of Lodz.more
A "world-first" mental health scheme set up to tackle the unmet psychological stress among NHS GPs has seen more patients in its first 10 months than it was expected to handle annually. The revelation comes as a survey of more than 800 family doctors found one in seven admit they have turned to alcohol or prescription drugs to manage the pressure of their jobmore
A 16-month-old child who allegedly developed acute bronchitis because of damp and mouldy conditions at his mother's rented home has been awarded €20,000 against her former landlords.more
More than 40 of the UK's largest towns and cities have air considered too dangerous to breathe, including London, a report has shown. Pollution levels in 44 out of the 51 places studied exceeded the WHO's safety limits for fine sooty particles, which have been linked to heart disease and premature death.more
The UK faces serious health implications if the government fails to agree a Brexit deal, finds a report that says of 35 portions of fruit and vegetables, a figure relating to the five-a-day recommendation for individuals, just one "portion" is grown in the UK and picked by British or non-EU workers.more
Early signs indicate that Public Health England's new harm reduction approach to decreasing smoking rates across the UK has not only been widely accepted, but capitalized upon. For the first time, vaping has featured prominently within the NHS Stoptober campaign, with the official website included in the Stoptober TV advertisement.more
Leading supermarkets have been called on to stop selling salmon reared by certain Scottish farms because they have sea lice infestations up to 20 times the recommended level.more
Cocaine use is now global epidemic, but some countries are held more tightly in its grasp than others. The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime has just published statistics on which countries are most in thrall to the narcotic and Ireland is surprisingly high on the list - we're the tenth biggest users of the substance on the planet.more