By Shania Obrien For Daily Mail Australia

Published: 00:59 EDT, 21 September 2023 | Updated: 04:00 EDT, 21 September 2023

MasterChef Australia fans outraged over rumours Jamie Oliver is set to replace Jock Zonfrillo on the new season

By Mary Mrad For Daily Mail Australia

Published: 02:43 EDT, 21 September 2023 | Updated: 02:54 EDT, 21 September 2023

Thousands of freshly-trained medics join the NHS every year after five years in medical school.

But it was revealed this week that, rather than working in the health service, a third of those in training plan to flee the UK in favour of working in the likes of Australia, New Zealand and Canada in a bid for better pay and work-life balance.

One in 33 students even plan to leave medicine altogether.

Among the medics vacating the health service include those jetting off to use their skills abroad and those becoming social media stars or joining OnlyFans – with some earning millions.

Moved to Australia

Dr Michael Mrozinski says he felt exhausted after working in the NHS for seven years.

The medic, 37, says that during his time as a junior doctor in Glasgow, the NHS couldn’t ‘care less’ about his ideas for providing better patient care.

On TikTok, the Scot explained that by age 30 he was ‘completely burnt out’.

He said he saw far too many patients, was snowed under with paperwork and always left an hour or two after finishing.

Dr Mrozinski said: ‘That just wasn’t sustainable for me.

‘So I decided to get away from the NHS, to move out to Australia and it is the best decision I have ever made.’

The medic started working in Australia in 2016. He said his work-life balance is far more sustainable and his more senior colleagues even ‘scolded him for not taking his coffee breaks’ or staying 20 minutes after his shift.

Became a Youtube star

Dr Ali Abdaal, 29, studied medicine for six years at Cambridge University and worked as a junior doctor for a further two.

During his studies, he set up a YouTube channel, creating content around medicine and his degree.

But eight years into working for the NHS, he was earning £40,000 a year as a medic while he claims his YouTube account made him millions.

He said: ‘This year we are expecting the business to probably make around £2million in profit.’

‘The money equation here is completely asymmetrical,’ he added.

He explained that he would have eventually reached a salary of £100,000 working for the NHS after specialising, but that wouldn’t be for many years.

Dr Abdaal revealed that while he did enjoy his job as a doctor, he did not look forward to going to work on a Monday morning.

He said now he genuinely looks forward to going to work every day and rushes through his morning routine just to sit at his desk and work on ‘doing his own thing’.

Joined OnlyFans

Michaela Ogilvie, from Ramsgate, left her role as an NHS mental health social worker earlier this year.

The 32-year-old made the decision after becoming ‘depressed’ by her work.

Since making the switch, the content creator has amassed nearly 20,000 followers on Instagram and 30,000 on TikTok.

But her income comes from OnlyFans, where she claims she is in the top two percent of creators on the site, earns up to £1,000 a week.

She said: ‘I enjoy it so much more than social work – it’s so freeing.  

‘For me it’s about taking back control.’

Became a life coach

Dr Helena Bridge, who worked as an NHS junior doctor in Oxford, says she was often left ‘sobbing and hyperventilating’ while working as a junior doctor.

She said she was overwhelmed with calls and a long list of urgent tasks, which left her ‘scared’ in case she made a mistake that cost someone their life.

After nearly a decade in medicine, she took the ‘ultimate risk’ and left the NHS last year.

The neuroscience graduate became a life coach instead and has since set up her own business.

Dr Bridge said: ‘I am definitely not anti-medicine, but I am anti-suffering.’

‘The system feels like a sinking ship’, Helena added.

‘I would not want to continue working in a health care system like this, because I couldn’t provide to my patients the kind of care standards that I would want for my own family or friends or for myself.

‘I don’t dehumanise patients, I don’t see them as a tick box on a list of todo things. I value people’s quality of life, I value that they are not in pain.’

A million US deaths could be averted each year if mortality rates in America were on par with those in other rich countries, a damning report has found.

Researchers looked at the rate of all-cause mortality per population size since the 1930s in nearly two dozen peer nations, including the UK, Canada, Japan, Australia and 17 European countries. 

They found that despite the US being the richest, it has suffered more deaths per capita than any of the 21 other nations since around 1980, which have reached ‘unprecedented levels’ in recent years.

The study noted the opioid and fentanyl epidemic, gun violence, and obesity-related deaths, which have all been exacerbated by the Covid pandemic, are the reason America is an outlier.

The study, published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences Nexus, found that by 2019, around 600,000 deaths could have been prevented if the US had similar mortality rates to its peer nations.

But in 2020 and 2021, this rose to 1.1million.  

Steffie Woolhandler, senior author and professor at the School of Urban Public Health at Hunter College, blamed America’s healthcare system, insurers, corporate greed and politicians for the avoidable deaths the country has seen.

‘We waste hundreds of billions each year on health insurers’ profits and paperwork, while tens of millions can’t afford medical care, healthy food, or a decent place to live,’ Woolhandler said.

‘Americans die younger than their counterparts elsewhere because when corporate profits conflict with health, our politicians side with the corporations,’ she added.

The United States was only one of a handful of countries on the list that does not provide universal healthcare coverage to its residents. 

Despite the number of excess deaths peaking in 2020 and 2021, the team from Boston University School of Public Health, University of Pennsylvania, Harvard Chan School of Public Health and Hunter College found America’s excess death rate had been worsening since the 1980s.

During World War II and thereafter, America had a lower mortality rate than peer countries. 

In the 1960s and 70s, the rate was similar to other wealthy countries. 

However, in the 1980s, the number of excess deaths began to rise, climbing to approximately 622,500 in 2019. 

Deaths then spiked in 2020 and 2021 during the pandemic. Those years saw approximately one million excess deaths.

In the years between 1980 and 2021, there were 13.1 million ‘missing Americans’. 

Study lead and corresponding author Jacob Bor, an associate professor of global health and epidemiology at Boston University, called the number of missing Americans ‘unprecedented in modern times.’

Nearly half of the missing Americans died prior to age 65 in 2020 and 2021, a level of excess deaths Bor said was particularly stark. 

‘Think of people you know who have passed away before reaching age 65. Statistically, half of them would still be alive if the US had the mortality rates of our peers. The US is experiencing a crisis of early death that is unique among wealthy nations,’ Bor said. 

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reported life expectancy in 2020 was 77 years old, a decline of nearly two years from 2019. In 2021, life expectancy declined again to 76.4 years. 

In 2020, nine of the 10 leading causes of death were the same as in 2019, though five causes switched ranks. 

However, heart disease and cancer remained the top two, while Covid was newly added and took the third slot. 

Unintentional injuries moved to fourth place and stroke moved to fifth place.

In 2021, nine of the 10 leading causes of death remained unchanged from the year prior and heart disease, cancer and Covid were the top three again.

Unintentional injury and stroke remained the fourth and fifth top causes of death in 2021, respectively. 

During both 2020 and 2021, deaths among all ages increased year-over-year, except those among one- to four-year-olds, which declined slightly only in 2020. 

‘Living in the US is a risk factor for early death that is common across many US racial and ethnic groups,’ Bor said. 

‘Whereas most health disparities studies assess differences between US racial/ethnic groups, such an approach renders the poor health of Whites invisible and grossly underestimates the health shortfall of minoritized groups. 

‘By using an international benchmark, we show that Americans of all races and ethnicities are adversely affected by the US policy environment, which places a low priority on public health and social protections, particularly for low-income people.’ 

Accounting for the future years lost due to someone dying prematurely, researchers estimate that in 2021, excess deaths translated to 26.4 million years of life lost when compared to peer countries. 

Based on the study results and the trend of excess deaths in the US, Mr Bor is not optimistic mortality rates will rebound in the near future, even as Covid deaths fall to some of their lowest numbers. 

‘The US was already experiencing more than 600,000 missing Americans annually before the pandemic began, and that number was increasing each year. There have been no significant policy changes since then to change this trajectory.

‘While COVID-19 brought new attention to public health, the backlash unleashed during the pandemic has undermined trust in government and support for expansive policies to improve population health.

‘This could be the most harmful long-term impact of the pandemic, because expansion of public policy to support health is exactly how our peer countries have attained higher life expectancy and better health outcomes.’

An Australian traveller has shared her ‘honest review of the Amalfi Coast’ and why the popular tourist destination is ‘not for the faint hearted’. 

Isabella Highfield and her partner, from Sydney, visited the picturesque must-see Italian town in early August but were left disappointed. 

While Isabella described the Amalfi Coast as ‘one of the most beautiful places she’s ever been to’, it was tainted by awful experiences. 

She claims catching jam-packed buses felt like a ‘death wish’, restaurants charged ‘too much’ for a bowl of pasta and she felt sick by the smell of body odour.

The experience left the couple wanting to flee and travel back home as soon as possible.

Isabella detailed her experience in a five-minute TikTok video that’s now been viewed more than 70,000 times.  

‘Let’s start with getting here. We are staying in a little town called Minori which is one across from Amalfi. Whichever town you stay in on the Amalfi Coast … you first have to get to Salerno which is the main train station,’ she said. 

It took the couple five hours to travel to Salerno on the train from Rome via Naples, which she said was a hassle in itself.

But the bus ride to their hotel was possibly the most terrifying experience of the whole trip. 

‘We had to catch the bus to Minori … it took over an hour. When I say I’ve never experienced anything in my life like this before, it’s not an understatement,’ she continued. 

‘I’m talking about a one-way street they somehow manage to fit three, four lanes of cars depending if there’s people parked on the side of the road. 

‘The buses drive at literally 100km/h whirling, whirl-ing around corners.’ 

She claims it seemed like two buses driving in opposite directions were only ‘millimetres’ away from each other. 

‘It’s wild, and they just honk their horns around the corners for safety. I honestly thought I was going to die,’ Isabella recalled. 

‘Not to mention the other motorists or motorcyclists that swerve in and out of these cars, or walk on the side of the road.’ 

This year in particular thousands of Australians have travelled to Europe for the ultimate summer holiday, but Isabella said the sheer number of people visiting Amalfi was ‘overwhelming’.     

‘Not to mention that I think people in general doesn’t know what deodorant is because the smell.. I mean it is hot..,’ she said. 

‘If you’re not gonna be sick from the buses, you are gonna be sick from the smell of people.’ 

Isabella also claims the ferries and buses ‘don’t arrive’ on time based on the schedule – so plan ahead. 

She added how the lines for the ferry are unorganised 

‘We had to catch a ferry from Amalfi to Positano … but there’s one line, and hundreds and hundreds of people all waiting in line for lots of different ferries, but one line,’ she said. 

‘So when your ferry comes and you’re right at the end of the line, you’ve just got to push your way through people that don’t want to get on that ferry. 

‘Like, why not just have six different lines? It’s honestly not that hard, there’s definitely room for it.’ 

The entire ordeal left Isabella ‘frustrated’ and feeling the need to ‘rant about it’. 

As a whole, likely because of the surge in popularity in recent years, Isabella found Amalfi to be an expensive place to visit. 

She dubbed the food as ‘average’ and ‘expensive’ compared to other parts of Italy. 

‘Some places are charging €36 ($60 AUD) for a plate of pasta. It’s f***ing flour and water!’ she added. 

After watching Isabella’s video opinions were divided and some agreed with her. 

‘My sister HATED IT! Said the bus trip to get there was the scariest thing ever,’ one commented.  

‘Agree overly priced,’ another said, a third added: ‘We were there last week and we had nearly the same experience.’ 

However others felt like Isabella was overreacting. 

‘Epic dramatisation,’ one wrote, another said: ‘The train from Rome to Salerno is one hour and an half. Logically the cheapest one is four hours.’

‘The problem is that lot’s of people try travelling without information of the place their visiting,’ a third said.  

Others recommended thoroughly researching a destination before travelling.

READ MORE: I upgraded to business class for $25 and have done it on the cheap three times. Here’s how to do it

Warning as Aussie tourist stunned by ‘shocking’ side effect on long-haul flight from Europe: ‘Everyone needs to know about this’

By Michael Rudling For Mailonline

Published: 03:16 EDT, 19 August 2023 | Updated: 06:08 EDT, 19 August 2023

Advertisement

MEMOIR

THE GOD OF NO GOOD 

by Sita Walker (Ultimo Press £16.99, 320pp)

Sita Walker’s heartfelt memoir opens in a café in Brisbane, Australia, over a vanilla custard slice.

Walker had just taken a bite when her husband, Borhan, announced he no longer wanted to be married. She had icing sugar on her face and assumed it was a joke — but he was perfectly serious. There had been no fighting, no arguments — but he wanted out.

Walker had form when it came to break-ups, having already ‘left God’. Raised in the Baha’i Faith (which believes in the unity and equality of humanity, and in one God), she married at 20, had sex for the first time on her wedding night, and didn’t touched a drop of alcohol (‘not even in a plum pudding’) until she was 28.

Unlike her husband, who ‘left God like Noel Gallagher left Oasis’, Walker’s faith gradually ebbed away into a state of doubt. She maintained a facade with her family — not swearing, smoking or drinking when she was with them, making excuses not to participate in Faith activities. She stepped away so stealthily no one suspected she’d left her religion.

Aged 35, unmoored by the end of not one relationship but two, Walker packed up her three children and moved to a rental: adrift in a ‘sea of unbelieving’.

But this is not, she says, a book about divorce or God. (Not entirely, anyway.) ‘Like everything else, this is about love.’

Lost and bewildered Walker may be when we first meet her, but she comes from a family with an extraordinary capacity for love. Her memoir reads like a novel — a sprawling, intimate, intergenerational family saga. And what a family. Warm, wise and anchored by not one but five strong women: Walker’s grandmother, Dolly; her mother, Fari; and her remarkable aunties, Mehri, Irie and Mona, who dispense love, well-intentioned advice, and chai in equal measure.

It is a family of cousins who feel like siblings, full of whispered intimacies and unspoken, affectionate shorthand.

Walker’s own story is a springboard into the family’s past as she skates elegantly between generations and around the globe. She takes us from Tehran in 1946, where widowed Dolly cleans, sews and scrimps to keep her five children to India in 1952, where a terrified Fari cowers in a mulberry tree, chanting a magic prayer against a black panther. In 1966, Dolly and her daughters flee heartbreak, in search of a new life in Australia where, in 1980s Toowoomba, four-year-old Sita — her parents’ fourth child, her father’s ‘precious treasure’ — eats chapatis and begs Dolly to sing You Are My Sunshine yet again.

Intertwined throughout is the ending of Walker’s marriage. After Borhan’s declaration over that vanilla slice, they drift towards a civilised separation until, in 2015, they mark their divorce by taking hallucinogenic drugs together in the forest.

A novel approach which certainly promises more excitement than arguing in a lawyer’s office.

This, Borhan tells her, will allow them to subconsciously uncouple.

In her drug-induced state Walker sees her family’s souls as elements. And, suddenly, she understands: she is fire and so is he. Together they are ‘too much fire’. Little wonder their relationship is a ‘ravaged’ landscape.

The matriarchs gather her to their collective bosom. Her students — she is clearly an excellent and loved English teacher — notice that she is different and shyly offer their sympathy.

And then there is a new love affair — with Anthony, a kind, interesting, charming actor, who kisses ‘like Joseph Fiennes in Shakespeare In Love’. (This quality is accorded the reverence it warrants.)

Walker has an eagle ear for dialogue, an eye for absurdity, and is drolly self-deprecating. She tells us that this is ‘no post-divorce Eat, Pray, Love’. But on a more modest scale, it is — as told by Nora Ephron. Food is offered as comfort incarnate, there is faith and there is an abundance of love.

Walker realises she must listen to the women who raised her for the fate of her soul. In the words of redoubtable Aunty Mona, take the fear from her heart and fill it with love. For that, and only that, is the answer.

The Voice Australia coach Jason Derulo slams extremely popular Aussie food staple

By Marta Jary For Daily Mail Australia

Published: 08:27 EDT, 13 August 2023 | Updated: 09:03 EDT, 13 August 2023

Jason Derulo reveals whether Australia or American have better coffee as he films the local edition of The Voice Down Under

By Marta Jary For Daily Mail Australia

Published: 08:41 EDT, 12 August 2023 | Updated: 08:49 EDT, 12 August 2023

The Reserve Bank’s outgoing governor Philip Lowe has admitted he’s the most unpopular man in Australia – but argued inflation would be even higher without his aggressive rate hikes.

Dr Lowe told a House of Representatives economics committee in Canberra he wasn’t worried about being unpopular, in his last appearance before a parliamentary hearing before he finishes in September.

‘It’s unpopular but we’ll do what’s necessary and want the community to understand that because if people come to doubt us, that will make the eventual task more difficult,’ he said on Friday. 

Dr Lowe was seated next to his deputy and successor Michele Bullock, who next month will become the first woman to lead the Reserve Bank in its 63-year history. 

He said that unlike politicians, he didn’t have to worry about being re-elected, after Treasurer Jim Chalmers declined to extend his seven-year term.

‘The reason that monetary policy has really been assigned to an independent, central bank is it’s very difficult for the political class to do what we’re currently doing – that is putting up interest rates,’ Dr Lowe said.

‘People are hurting, it’s very uncomfortable and we’re putting up interest rates.

‘In parts of the community, we’re incredibly popular – I often read in the paper that I’m the most unpopular person in the country. That’s fine.

‘It’s much harder for the political class to be unpopular in the way that the Reserve Bank and I am unpopular.’

Australian home borrowers have copped the most aggressive pace of interest rate rises since 1989 – with 12 increases since May 2022 that have taken the cash rate to an 11-year high of 4.1 per cent. 

Variable mortgage rates have typically surged by 64 per cent in little more than a year with borrowers servicing an average $600,000 mortgage paying $17,800 a year more than they did 15 months ago.

Despite that, Sydney’s median house price has been climbing in every month since February, last month rising by another one per cent to $1.334million, CoreLogic data showed.

Dr Lowe noted that Australia’s population growth pace of 2 per cent was outpacing the 1.5 per cent increase in new homes, arguing those buying now regarded the hiking cycle as being over. 

‘There’s an understandable perception in the community that the peak of interest rates is either now or close at hand,’ he said.

‘People say, “If I can afford the current rate of repayments and I don’t lose my job, there’s going to be strong demand going forward”.’

But with rents surging in Australia’s biggest cities, Dr Lowe spoke out against the idea of a rent cap, a policy advocated by the Greens.

‘They’re short-term fixes that make the problem worse,’ he said.

‘In most cases, rent controls reduce the incentive to add to supply.’

Dr Lowe said that even if rates were to rise again, they wouldn’t be going up to the same extent with crude oil prices now lower than they were last year. 

‘Interest rates have increased a lot, who knows what’s going to happen in the future, but we won’t see the type of increases in interest rates that we’ve seen over the last year,’ he said. ‘That pressure will go away.’ 

He made the suggestion despite indicating in 2021 that interest rates would stay on hold at a record-low of 0.1 per cent until 2024 ‘at the earliest’. 

Australia’s 6 per cent inflation rate is lower than the 32-year high level of 7.8 per cent reached at the end of 2022, but it’s still much higher than the wage price index of 3.7 per cent. 

‘I know high interest rates are unpopular but it’s the way to get inflation back down and real incomes rising again,’ Dr Lowe said.

‘The biggest drain on real, household disposable income over the past year isn’t higher interest rates, it’s high inflation.’

Dr Lowe, whose seven-year term expires on September 18, promised wages growth would overtake inflation in 2024 and suggested less of the cost of living burden would fall on the young.

‘There are clear differences across households – younger households who borrowed during the pandemic are having to restrain their spending more than older households who have a lot of financial assets, don’t have any debt,’ he said.

‘I think we’ll see a more equal experience over the next 12 months than we’ve had over the past 12 months.

‘The key to that is to get inflation down and to get real incomes rising again because that will help everybody.’

Australians are typically suffering a cut in real wages, whether or not that owned their home outright, had a mortgage or were renting.

‘The first point I’d make is everybody’s hurting because high inflation is eroding people’s real income,’ Dr Lowe said. 

‘And when real income goes down, you have to cut back your spending and we see that cutback in spending right across the board.

‘High inflation is eroding people’s incomes and that’s causing everyone pain and that’s why it’s so critical to get inflation down.’

The Reserve Bank is expecting wages growth to exceed four per cent in 2024, for the first time in 15 years.

Dr Lowe warned that without productivity improvements, real wages, economic growth and profitability would suffer. 

‘If we don’t we’re going to have problems,’ he said.

The RBA is expecting inflation to return to the top of its two to three per cent target by mid-2025 but Dr Lowe noted that would have still meant four years of inflation being outside the band. 

‘If we let it drift longer, people might rightly say, ‘Was the Reserve Bank really serious about this?’,’ he said, adding this would see people demand higher wages and lead to higher prices.

‘The whole inflation psychology would shift and once that happens, we know that to get inflation eventually back down means even higher interest rates and more unemployment.’

The 30-day interbank futures market and three of Australia’s Big Four banks – Commonwealth, Westpac and ANZ – believe the rate rises are over.

But NAB is forecasting one more increase in November that would take the cash rate to a 12-year high of 4.35 per cent.