Against strong competition, Imperial county has some of California's worst air, with the highest rate of childhood hospitalisation for asthma.

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However, NICE says that the cost to the NHS of dealing with "hypos" - many of which require hospitalisation - justify the extra cost.

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That, at least, would make the hospitalisation process more transparent.

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On care of the elderly, for example, they say the objective must be to integrate service provision so that the first option is not automatically hospitalisation, the most costly.

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The death follows the hospitalisation of seven young people last week as a result of taking pink Ecstasy-like Rockstar tablets and a warning issued last year over AMT or 5-I.

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The episode is the start of a chaotic 20 years of mania interspersed with debilitating depression, ostracism, poor decision-making, hospitalisation, joblessness, homelessness and, cruellest of all, having her three children taken into care.

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Surgical procedures are the result of medical fashion and preferences, as well as need: in Tampa Bay, for example, three hospital regions in 1994-95 had similar rates of hospitalisation for stroke victims, but widely differing rates of surgery for the patients.

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James McCormick from the Joseph Rowntree Foundation stressed the importance of "light touch, low cost preventative interventions" in the community to avoid hospitalisation, as emergency care for over 70's was four times more expensive than the entire bill for free care for the elderly in Scotland.

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