Great article by Nick Evershed, appearing in the Guardian on 20 October, 2015.

http://www.theguardian.com/news/datablog/2015/oct/20/what-were-dying-from-the-leading-causes-of-death-in-australia

Edited by quickflick: 21/10/2015 11:24:34 PM

Dat Spanish Flu.

Really sad to see that suicide is #1 for young people. It's even more sad when that doesn't even come as a surprise.

Also, any smokers out there should take a long hard look at the amount of space coronary heart disease, lung cancer and COPD pop up on those lists. Different times I suppose, but that is an embarrassment.

Edited by Draupnir: 22/10/2015 12:03:25 AM

Somebody pointed out in the comments section of the original article that, in spite of all this great stuff in terms of promoting mental health awareness, the number of subsidised visits to psychologists has been reduced from 18 per year to just ten per year.

This is outrageous. It makes it far more difficult for people to get help they need in terms of treating their mental health issues. I can see terrible things occurring as a result of this cut.

We're going backwards. My fury at this is basically unbridled. I don't know which government is responsible for making this reduction. But even if I liked them for every other policy, I'd not vote for them on this basis alone.

Smokers are doing everyone a favour by dying years if not decades earlier than your average Aussie.

Save heaps on dementia care, hip replacements, arthritis medicine, knee recons. The list is endless.

Fat pricks dying of heart attacks before they're 60 is a win too.

Really they're the ultimate budget saving initiatives.

Maybe an incentive is needed to get more kids to take up smoking?

Not to lack sensitivity - but I would think it obvious that suicide would be the #1 killer of young people. Simply because that is the age of prime physical health, and therefore lowest death rates generally. In other words, suicide is the leading cause of death almost by default, because youg adults are unlikely to die from anything else.

Having said that, I definitely agree with the need for more resources to treat mental health issues. It would be interesting to see more in-depth data. Are suicide rates increasing for young people?

Whilst I don't disagree with that - the data in the article shows that death rates are declining.

'killed by death'...

It's weird right?

You have to die of something.

Someone doesn't die from a heart attack at age 75 but rots in a hospice slowly dying of organ failure due to dementia at age 85 and that's some sort of victory?

The actual problem is people are living too long. (As in an unhealthy terrible final few years.)

The fat pricks are no longer dying in their 60s, we keep them alive until their 80s and 90s. It'll be a rough 30 years until the baby boomers die out.

they'll live long enough to see another back to the future franchise series :-$

That's what I'm saying. The fat pricks that are dying are doing us a favour. The one's that go on with it are the problem.

Now there's a great song.

If you squeeze my lizard.

Callous much?

Can't wait till you all get old.

And what are you going to do with another 10 years of living? Run with the bulls at Pamplona? ](*,)

Mate it's tongue in cheek stuff. (And I'm well on my way.)

But the bit I said about dying in a hospice is true. It's not a "victory" over an early death at all.

Ask U4. One of the biggest problems in Australia is the HUGE cost of keeping old people alive when there's little or no quality of life. Something like 30% of medicare but U4 would know better than me.

There's a whole "advanced care directive" debate that needs to happen in Australia.

A lot of people lying in hospices all over Australia just wish they could hurry the whole process up.

I think you're missing the point.

What is accidental poisoning ? Drug overdose ?

Yep - an absolute boatload of reform (including euthanasia law reform) is required in this area.

Bound to be. It accounts for so many. Can't imagine too many people accidentally swallowing strychnine.

Without going into the topic of euthanasia, much less folk wasting away in nursing homes.

One of my uncle's is a geriatric physician. He was telling us that he has patients in their late 80s or 90s who get pneumonia. He then, sometimes, has their children throwing a tanty and imploring his to prescribe ICU strength drugs to keep the parent alive.

I can sympathise with the children, whose parents are dying. But my uncle just gets fed up with it. You have to die of something and he reckons pneumonia's a relatively peaceful and easy way to go for these people who, after all, are very old and have lived long lives.

Then again, my grandmother has asked that if she has a heart attack to have CPR done (even though it would probably crack her ribs).

This is a common problem faced in this field. Probably too many people have watched too many movies and have unrealistic expectations.

Most people in their 80s and 90s if you really sit down with them would not be averse to not waking up tomorrow morning. They're not depressed, they're happy, its just that when people get to that age they've often accepted their own mortality. I would go as far as to say that this is a normal part of the ageing process in humans and younger generations sometimes have great difficulty in understanding this mentality and think they are just "depressed."

Most relatives are reasonable though and would rather their relative didn't suffer.

To be fair, I'm not sure how many of his patients children are like this. Maybe he'd just dealt with a particularly forceful bunch when he was telling us.

Actually, what you say really does tally with what he said. I'm trying to remember exactly what he said but I think it was something along the lines of people's children are often more scared of death than the parents. That's not to say there aren't old people afraid of dying. But I think he said he thought it scared people's children more because once their parents are gone, they're the next in line. By their parents dying, it brings them closer to death. And, he reckons, that's what scares them.

Probably all true. The older generations don't tell their children how they feel, but they definitely tell doctors. Very few family members are painful and unreasonable but the ones that are are remembered more.

Im dying to know...