Sydney mum denies trying to poison son by putting feces in his hospital IV drip

Australia is a hard country with massive droughts, massive rainfalls every 10 years (like now) and quite weird behavior.

Stories like the following appear daily. The weird ones.

Heath Parkes-Hupton of The Australian writes a mum accused of putting feces in her son’s cannula as he writhed in pain at a Sydney hospital was heard being asked by her sick child “why are you doing this to me”, a court has heard.

The boy’s mother is facing a special hearing at Downing Centre District Court for allegedly poisoning her then nine-year-old son through his cannula while he was a patient at The Children’s Hospital at Westmead in September 2014.

The woman, a mother of four who can’t be named, denies infecting the boy and has pleaded not guilty to using poison to endanger a life.

His blood culture later tested positive to the bacteria E. coli.

The mother’s barrister Pauline David told the court on Thursday there were a number of possibilities that could explain how the boy became infected.

Crown witness and nurse Lindie Brown, who was working at a unit manager at the ward where the boy was a patient, told the court he became “very unwell” during one of her shifts.

The court heard the boy had a temperature of 40C and began experiencing rigors – or shaking.

He was also complaining of pains in his back, stomach and head and asked for medicine to “take the pain away”, the court heard.

Ms Brown told the court she then heard the boy ask his mother “why she was doing this to him”.

He then said words to the effect of “you could have put something in my cannula when I was asleep”, Ms Brown said.

The hearing before Judge Justin Smith continues.

Everyone’s got a camera: Rat infestation shuts down Sydney fast food store

Popular fast food chain Oporto has been forced to close the doors of one of its Sydney outlets after it was revealed the store had a horrendous rat infestation.

Footage posted to Facebook by Vijay Kumar shows large rats running around the store, leaping on counters and scurrying into the kitchen of the Broadway fast food outlet.

“This one goes out to all the Oporto lovers out there! Think zillion times before you walk again into this place,” Mr Kumar wrote along with the video.

“Todays Special — Spicy Gluten free Rat burgers!”

Craveable Brands, which owns Oporto, Red Rooster and Chicken Treat, told news.com.au that it shut the store down as soon as the company became aware of the video on January 17.

“Oporto stores across Australia maintain rigorously high sanitation standards. This is a one-off situation related to a single store in Broadway, Sydney,” the organisation said in a statement.

“Vermin appear to have been dislocated by external construction activity in the Broadway area, which can lead to increased activity for surrounding businesses. Vermin appear to have accessed the Broadway restaurant via a ventilation hole, or other access point from outside.”

Australian bakery that sickened 203 with Salmonella in 1996 fined $130K

In late Jan. 2016, a bakery in Sydney’s south was closed as customers started reporting Salmonella illness.

On Monday, the owners of the Box Village Bakery, Thi Thu Ngo and Hung Son Le, were fined a total of $122,000 and ordered to pay $7,199 professional costs after each was convicted of ten breaches of the Food Act 2003.

The owners the Sylvania bakery at the centre of a Salmonella outbreak that affected more than 200 people, each pleaded guilty to five breaches of selling unsafe food, and five breaches of failing to meet food safety standards and were fined $61,000 each.

There were 203 documented cases of people who had presented to hospitals and other health care providers with symptoms of gastroenteritis including vomiting, diarrhea and fever after consuming bakery items such as chicken rolls and salads that were linked back to the bakery.

During its investigation the NSW Food Authority issued a Prohibition Order requiring the business to cease operations.

The business was only permitted to reopen and trade after it completed extensive work to ensure the bakery had been thoroughly cleaned and fully compliant with food safety laws.

The NSW Food Authority also conducted skills and knowledge testing with staff and management of the business to improve their food safety knowledge and conducted a number of inspections of the premises subsequent to its reopening to ensure it continued to be fit to trade.

CEO of the NSW Food Authority Dr Lisa Szabo said the court result served as a reminder to all food businesses and individuals as to why food safety systems are crucial.

Probably the lamb: 31 sickened with Salmonella in late 2014 at Sydney sports club

A foodborne illness outbreak involving an elite sports team was investigated by a public health unit in Sydney, Australia. An epidemiological association was established between gastrointestinal illness and the consumption of food supplied by an external caterer, with a lamb meal most strongly associated with illness.

Genetically identical Salmonella isolates were identified from clinical specimens, residual food items, and an environmental swab taken from the catering premises. The training schedule and other club operations were significantly affected by this outbreak. Increased susceptibility due to regular shared activities and the potential for significant impact upon performance indicates that sports clubs must ensure that food suppliers comply with the highest standards of hygiene. Collaboration with public health authorities assists in source identification and prevention of further transmission.

Foodborne illness outbreak investigation in a high-profile sports club

Sports Medicine, 24 June 2017, 3:24, Kwendy Cavanagh, Travers Johnstone, Essi Huhtinen, Zeina Najjar, Peter Lorentzos, Craig Shadbolt, John Shields and Leena Gupta,

DOI: 10.1186/s40798-017-0088-x

https://sportsmedicine-open.springeropen.com/articles/10.1186/s40798-017-0088-x

Blame bandicoot poop: 2 kids sick from Salmonella-in-sand in Sydney’s northern beaches

Bandicoots have a bifurcated penis.

And are Salmonella factories.

In 2014, at least 19 people were sickened after coming into contact with bandicoot poop while playing in the sand in Sydney’s northern beaches.

It’s happened again.

Julie Cross of The Daily Telegraph reports a playground on the northern beaches has been closed after two children became sick with salmonella after playing in the sandpit.

The children caught the infection, believed to be spread through contact with bandicoot droppings, after playing at Warriewood Valley Rocket Park in Casuarina Drive.

Now Northern Beaches Council says it is considering replacing the sand with rubber to prevent the problem recurring.

The former Pittwater Council spent $285,000 replacing playground sand contaminated by the nasty bug with a soft rubber surface.

As well as spreading salmonella java, the protected bandicoot is a known tick host, which can cause mammalian meat and tick allergies and other diseases.

Northern Sydney Local Health District public health director Michael Staff said as the peninsula was a stronghold of the bandicoot, most cases of the salmonella java bug was linked to the area.

There have been 12 reported cases linked to the peninsula this year.

“We hope that the closure of the park will prevent further cases,” Dr Staff said.

The health district said a sand sample taken from the playground was tested after two confirmed salmonella java cases were reported to the public health unit, one in April and another in May.

Northern Sydney Local Health District director of public health Dr Michael Staff said parents of young children should try and stop them putting their hands in their mouths when they’re playing outside and get them to wash their hands after they have been outside.

Uh-huh.

Blame ‘bad souvlaki’ GPA data to catch Sydney taxi drivers using laneway as a toilet

Who says the space program hasn’t led to great inventions: Tang, Teflon, and GPS to track down taxi drivers in a public poo pandemic that’s leaving a group of business owners flushed with anger.

Shop owners on Hercules St, Ashfield in Sydney’s inner-west say discovering human feces in the laneway behind their businesses has become “a daily occurrence” along with the nauseating task of cleaning-up the offerings.

The situation has become so bad real estate agent Tim Simpson is considering relocating the business he’s run in the suburb for 40 years.

He said the final straw was catching a taxi driver “in the act” last weekend.

“I understand drivers are expected to work 24/7 but surely there’s better options than this,” he said.

“We’re the ones who are having to clean it up. It’s like living in the Third World.”

National taxi firm 13 CABS is investigating the claims by matching complaints against data from GPS devices fitted in taxis.

Head of client services Simon Purssey said he was “shocked and horrified” to hear the reports.

“I understand ‘when a man’s gotta go, a man’s gotta go’ but if you’ve eaten a bad souvlaki and all of a sudden have to pull over you don’t do it in someone’s property,” he said.

And I thought Australia had great access to public shit depositories, compared to the rest of the world.

 

Crypto hits NSW pools

As we chill (sweat) in the sleepy haven of South Golden Beach in New South Wales for a brief Christmas break, health authorities report Cryptosporidium has sickened at least 200 people in December and are warning people with diarrhea to stay out of shared pools.

sorenne-south-golden-beach-16The Sydney Morning Herald reports almost half of the cases were in children under 10-years-old. 

Health authorities have issued the warning urging people to stay out of shared swimming pools and water parks.

The biggest outbreak of cryptosporidiois was recorded in Sydney in 1998, when there were more than 1,000 confirmed cases.

Sydney was forced to boil its drinking water because it was found to be infected with the pathogens cryptosporidium and giardia.

Sydney mother avoids jail over breastfeeding on ‘naturopath’s raw food diet’ that nearly killed baby

Lucy Carter of ABC News reports a 33-year-old woman, who cannot be identified, was last year trying to treat her six-month-old son’s severe eczema and sought the advice of a naturopath who allegedly first put her on the diet and later convinced her to consume only water.

7713006-3x2-340x227The woman’s son nearly died of starvation and dehydration as a result.

The Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) lawyer, Alex Brown, told the Campbelltown Local Court that the woman “was a nurse who decided to blindly follow a naturopath she had only just met” and that her child came within days of death.

Magistrate Ian Guy said the mother would have been given jail time if she had not agreed to give evidence against the naturopath, Marilyn Bodnar, who is expected to face a committal hearing on Monday.

“On any view, [the offence is] extremely troubling and disconcerting considering how long the child had been vomiting,” he said.

Police claim the 59-year-old, from Leppington, gave advice to the mother, over the treatment of her son’s eczema in February 2015.

Officers allege the naturopath advised the mother to stop medicating her child.

In May 2015, the baby boy was admitted to hospital with severe malnourishment and developmental issues.

Bodnar has remained on bail since her arrest on the condition that she not provide naturopathy services to anyone under the age of 16.

Sydney restaurant curing meat outdoors on clothes hangers

A Chinese restaurant in Sydney has been filmed curing their meat on clothes hangers outdoors near garbage bins and a busy major road.

meat.cloths.lineHung Cheung Restaurant sits underneath Sydney Airport’s flight path at Marrickville, in the city’s Inner West.

The restaurant’s methods of curing pork belly came to A Current Affair’s attention after several nearby residents sent pictures to the show’s producers.

When A Current Affair travelled to the restaurant, the pork could be seen hanging on clothes hangers in the rear of the premises.

The restaurant’s manager attempted to deny that the meat belonged to them, instead claiming it was a tenant who lived above the restaurant curing their pork.

However, hearing what was happening, the restaurant’s upstairs tenant came outside and denied the meat was his.

“No man, it’s theirs,” the tenant said.

Tipped off by A Current Affair, food inspectors from the newly-formed Inner West Council arrived.

One minute later, the meat was removed from the clothes hangers.

Inner West Council had identified issues that were non-compliant with food safety standards. Air drying food outside was not one of the offences.

“Breaches of the Food Act were identified and enforcement action including issuing an on the spot fine and serving an improvement notice have been undertaken, on issues identified as non-compliant with food safety standards,” a spokesperson for Inner West Council told A Current Affair.

“These however were not related to the allegation of air drying food.”

Fancy food ain’t safe food, but neither are favorite cheap eateries

Some of Sydney’s most popular cheap eateries have, according to Daily Mail Australia, been named on the The New South Wales Food Authority’s latest ‘name and shame’ file.

nandos.sydneyIt seems cheap eats are so for a reason as many of the state’s fast food outlets, including a number of Nanods, Domino’s and Subway stores have been shamed for failing to meet hygiene standards. 

Nando’s in Liverpool was fined twice last year for failing to ‘maintain at or near each hand washing facility a supply of single use towels’, and not complying with food safety standards, a total of $1760.

Marrickville’s Minh Vietnamese Restaurant, Jasmin 1 in Bankstown and Petersham’s popular Frango’s Portuguese Charcoal Chicken also feature on the list, some of them on multiple occasions for varying offences. 

The New South Wales Food Authority publishes lists of businesses that have breached or are alleged to have breached the state’s food safety laws. 

Publishing the lists gives consumers more information to make decisions about where they eat or buy food. 

Famed chicken outlet Frango’s was fined $440 in March.

The Petersham favourite failed to ‘maintain at or near each hand washing facility a supply of soap and single use towels.’