The South African society of psychiatrists (SASOP) and SASOP State Employed Special Interest Group (SESIG) position statements on psychiatric care in the public sector

Executive summary. National mental health policy: SASOP extends its support for the process of formalising a national mental health policy as well as for the principles and content of the current draft policy. Psychiatry and mental health: psychiatrists should play a central role, along with the other mental health disciplines, in the strategic and operational planning of mental health services at local, provincial and national level. Infrastructure and human resources: it is essential that the state takes up its responsibility to provide adequate structures, systems and funds for the specified services and facilities on national, provincial and facility level, as a matter of urgency. Standard treatment guidelines (STGs) and essential drug lists (EDLs): close collaboration and co-ordination should occur between the processes of establishing SASOP and national treatment guidelines, as well as the related decisions on EDLs for different levels. HIV/AIDS in children: national HIV programmes have to promote awareness of the neurocognitive problems and psychiatric morbidity associated with HIV in children. HIV/AIDS in adults: the need for routine screening of all HIV-positive individuals for mental health and cognitive impairments should also be emphasised as many adult patients have a mental illness, either before or as a consequence of HIV infection, constituting a ‘special needs’ group. Substance abuse and addiction: the adequate diagnosis and management of related substance abuse and addiction problems should fall within the domain of the health sector and, in particular, that of mental health and psychiatry. Community psychiatry and referral levels: the rendering of ambulatory specialist psychiatric services on a community-centred basis should be regarded as a key strategy to make these services more accessible to users closer to where they live. Recovery and re-integration: a recovery framework such that personal recovery outcomes, among others, become the universal goals by which we measure service provision, should be adopted as soon as possible. Culture, mental health and psychiatry: culture, religion and spirituality should be considered in the current approach to the local practice and training of specialist psychiatry, within the professional and ethical scope of the discipline. Forensic psychiatry: an important and significant field within the scope of state-employed psychiatrists, with 3 recognised groups of patients (persons referred for forensic psychiatric observation, state patients, and mentally ill prisoners), each with specific needs, problems and possible solutions. Security in psychiatric hospitals and units: it is necessary to protect public sector mental healthcare practitioners from assault and injury as a result of performing their clinical duties by, among others, ensuring that adequate security procedures are implemented, appropriate for the level of care required, and that appointed security staff members are appropriately trained and equipped.Dr Reddy’s Laboratorieshttp://www.sajp.org.za/index.php/sajpam2013ay201

Participatory rural appraisal approaches for public participation in EIA: lessons from South Africa

Public participation in environmental impact assessment (EIA) often falls short of the requirements of best practice in the move towards sustainable development, particularly for disadvantaged and marginalized communities. This paper explores the value of a participatory rural appraisal (PRA) approach for improved public participation in a sample of EIA’s for photovoltaic projects in South Africa. PRA was conducted post facto making use of selected PRA tools. Findings show that a great deal more information was obtained by the PRA approach, confirming the perceived weakness of traditional PP for vulnerable and disadvantaged communities. It is concluded that a PRA approach has considerable potential for improving meaningful public participation, which should improve EIA, build capacity in those communities, and enhance livelihoods and sustainable resource us

The South African Society of Psychiatrists (SASOP) and SASOP State Employed Special Interest Group (SESIG) position statements on psychiatric care in the public sector

Geneeskunde en GesondheidswetenskappePsigiatriePlease help us populate SUNScholar with the post print version of this article. It can be e-mailed to: [email protected]

Testing reproducibility of vitrinite and solid bitumen reflectance measurements in North American unconventional source-rock reservoir petroleum systems

An interlaboratory study (ILS) was conducted to test reproducibility of vitrinite and solid bitumen reflectance measurements in six mudrock samples from United States unconventional source-rock reservoir petroleum systems. Samples selected from the Marcellus, Haynesville, Eagle Ford, Barnett, Bakken and Woodford are representative of resource plays currently under exploitation in North America. All samples are from marine depositional environments, are thermally mature (T >445 °C) and have moderate to high organic matter content (2.9–11.6 wt% TOC). Their organic matter is dominated by solid bitumen, which contains intraparticle nano-porosity. Visual evaluation of organic nano-porosity (pore sizes 1.0 produced lowest R values, generally ≤0.5% (absolute reflectance), similar to a prior ILS for similar samples. Other traditional approaches to outlier removal (outside mean ± 1.5*interquartile range and outside F10 to F90 percentile range) also produced similar R values. Standard deviation values < 0.15*(VR or BR) reduce R and should be a requirement of dispersed organic matter reflectance analysis. After outlier removal, R values were 0.1%–0.2% for peak oil thermal maturity, about 0.3% for wet gas/condensate maturity and 0.4%–0.5% for dry gas maturity. That is, these R values represent the uncertainty (in absolute reflectance) that users of vitrinite and solid bitumen reflectance data should assign to any one individual reported mean reflectance value from a similar thermal maturity mudrock sample. R values of this magnitude indicate a need for further standardization of reflectance measurement of dispersed organic matter. Furthermore, these R values quantify realistic interlaboratory measurement dispersion for a difficult but critically important analytical technique necessary for thermal maturity determination in the source-rock reservoirs of unconventional petroleum systems.This research was funded by the USGS Energy Resources Program

Testing reproducibility of vitrinite and solid bitumen reflectance measurements in North American unconventional source-rock reservoir petroleum systems

An interlaboratory study (ILS) was conducted to test reproducibility of vitrinite and solid bitumen reflectance measurements in six mudrock samples from United States unconventional source-rock reservoir petroleum systems. Samples selected from the Marcellus, Haynesville, Eagle Ford, Barnett, Bakken and Woodford are representative of resource plays currently under exploitation in North America. All samples are from marine depositional environments, are thermally mature (T \u3e445 °C) and have moderate to high organic matter content (2.9–11.6 wt% TOC). Their organic matter is dominated by solid bitumen, which contains intraparticle nano-porosity. Visual evaluation of organic nano-porosity (pore sizes \u3c 100 nm) via SEM suggests that intraparticle organic nano-pores are most abundant in dry gas maturity samples and less abundant at lower wet gas/condensate and peak oil maturities. Samples were distributed to ILS participants in forty laboratories in the Americas, Europe, Africa and Australia; thirty-seven independent sets of results were received. Mean vitrinite reflectance (VR ) values from all ILS participants range from 0.90 to 1.83% whereas mean solid bitumen reflectance (BR ) values range from 0.85 to 2.04% (no outlying values excluded), confirming the thermally mature nature of all six samples. Using multiple statistical approaches to eliminate outlying values, we evaluated reproducibility limit R, the maximum difference between valid mean reflectance results obtained on the same sample by different operators in different laboratories using different instruments. Removal of outlying values where the individual signed multiple of standard deviation was \u3e1.0 produced lowest R values, generally ≤0.5% (absolute reflectance), similar to a prior ILS for similar samples. Other traditional approaches to outlier removal (outside mean ± 1.5*interquartile range and outside F10 to F90 percentile range) also produced similar R values. Standard deviation values \u3c 0.15*(VR or BR ) reduce R and should be a requirement of dispersed organic matter reflectance analysis. After outlier removal, R values were 0.1%–0.2% for peak oil thermal maturity, about 0.3% for wet gas/condensate maturity and 0.4%–0.5% for dry gas maturity. That is, these R values represent the uncertainty (in absolute reflectance) that users of vitrinite and solid bitumen reflectance data should assign to any one individual reported mean reflectance value from a similar thermal maturity mudrock sample. R values of this magnitude indicate a need for further standardization of reflectance measurement of dispersed organic matter. Furthermore, these R values quantify realistic interlaboratory measurement dispersion for a difficult but critically important analytical technique necessary for thermal maturity determination in the source-rock reservoirs of unconventional petroleum systems. max o o o