A solar-powered airplane finished crossing the United States on Saturday, landing in New York City after flying over the Statue of Liberty during its historic bid to circle the globe, the project team said. The spindly, single-seat experimental aircraft, dubbed Solar Impulse 2, arrived at New York's John F. Kennedy International Airport at about 4 a.m. local time after it took off about five hours beforehand at Lehigh Valley International Airport in Pennsylvania, the team reported on the airplane's website. Such a pleasure to land in New York! For the 14th time we celebrate sustainability," said the project's co-founder Andre Borschberg on Twitter after flying over the city and the Statue of Liberty during the 14th leg of the trip around the globe. The Swiss team flying the aircraft in a campaign to build support for clean energy technologies hopes eventually to complete its circumnavigation in Abu Dhabi, where the journey began in March 2015. The solar cr...
End-of-life care in the UK has been ranked as the best in the world with a study praising the quality and availability of services. The study of 80 countries said thanks to the NHS and hospice movement the care provided was "second to none". Rich nations tended to perform the best - with Australia and New Zealand ranked second and third respectively. But the report by the Economist Intelligence Unit praised progress made in some of the poorest countries. For example Mongolia - ranked 28th - has invested in hospice facilities, while Uganda - 35th - has managed to improve access to pain control through a public-private partnership.The rankings were worked out following assessments for the quality of the hospitals and hospice environments, staffing numbers and skills, affordability of care and quality of care.
Just 34 out of 80 countries provided what could be classed as good end-of-life care - and these accounted for just 15% of the adult population. The report said the quality of end-of-life care was becoming increasingly important with the ageing population, meaning people were increasingly facing "drawn-out" deaths.Report author Annie Pannelay said: "The UK is an acknowledged leader in palliative care. That reflects its comprehensive strategy towards the issue as well as the improvements that are being made.
"But there is more that the UK could do to stay at the forefront of palliative care standards, such as ironing out occasional problems with communication or symptom control."
Claire Henry, chief executive of the National Council for Palliative Care, said: "At its best how the UK cares for people who are dying is absolutely world class with hospice care leading the way, but there can be no room for complacency, especially as the demand for palliative care is increasing."
The UK also came top the last time this report was produced in 2010. Also in the top 10 this time were the Irish Republic, France, Germany and the US.
Iraq and Bangladesh finished bottom of the ranking, while China was in the worst 10.
Dr Stephen Connor, of the the Worldwide Hospice Palliative Care Alliance, said: "The biggest problem that persists is that our healthcare systems are designed to provide acute care when what we need is chronic care. That's still the case almost everywhere in the world."
| End-of-life care: The best and the worst | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Top 10 | Score out of 100 | Bottom 10 | Score out of 100 |
| UK | 93.9 | Iraq | 12.5 |
| Australia | 91.6 | Bangladesh | 14.1 |
| New Zealand | 87.6 | Philippines | 15.3 |
| Ireland | 85.8 | Nigeria | 16.9 |
| Belgium | 84.5 | Myanmar | 17.1 |
| Taiwan | 83.1 | Dominic Republic | 17.2 |
| Germany | 82 | Guatemala | 20.9 |
| Netherlands | 80.9 | Iran | 21.2 |
| US | 80.8 | Botswana | 22.8 |
| France | 79.4 | China | 23.3 |
Comments
Post a Comment