It must be one of the weirdest health care procedures on offer and it just keeps getting weirder. Its clinical name: faecal transplantation.

Kerre McIvor writes: This week, an Aussie medical council made public a report concluding homeopathy is not effective for treating any medical condition. In effect, it's bunkum.

Jim Cleland has performed makeshift surgery on his Great Barrier Island dining room table, but now it's time to sell the $2m holiday home.

Pain-killing skin patches, prescribed for chronic pain and cancer care, can be deadly to children, health experts warn.

A doctor has been criticised for issuing a repeat prescription for antidepressants without a second face-to-face consultation with the patient, a young man who later took his own life.

Controversial anti-flu drug Tamiflu has been found to be useful, in the latest scientific study, at reducing the impact of influenza and keeping people out of hospital.

Ask Sir Murray Brennan about an esteemed medical career that has now been honoured with a knighthood and luck is a recurring theme.

Kiwis with cancer die from the disease sooner than Australian cancer patients, research shows, with some of the larger survival gaps in lung, liver and ovarian cancer.

A bill which would legalise voluntary euthanasia has been dropped by Labour MP Iain Lees-Galloway at the request of his leader Andrew Little.

A 10-year-old schoolgirl has caught the attention of Kiwi inventor Sir Ray Avery with a touching letter asking about his tough childhood.

It took months of planning, a nine-hour surgery and a team of 35 clinicians. But by the end, they had completed a ground-breaking double arm transplant on a quadruple amputee.

It costs drugmakers US$2.56 billion to bring a new medicine to market - more than double the price of 11 years ago.

A doctor from Sierra Leone with United States residency infected with Ebola may travel to the US to be treated for the deadly virus, medical officials say.

A man who tried to attend a $646 seminar held by a church offering a controversial cure for Ebola says he was turned away for offering a smaller donation.

Scientists from one of the world's leading institutes of tropical medicine, which first discovered the Ebola virus in the 1970s, flew out to Guinea yesterday to begin ground-breaking research into a possible cure.

For the first time in seven years, Jessika Guest feels like she is getting to know her daughter Jade.

New drugs and medical procedures undergo careful scrutiny before being foisted on the public. Nobody wants another Thalidomide disaster.

Thousands of New Zealand multiple sclerosis sufferers will gain a greater sense of normality with the funding of two revolutionary drug treatments from tomorrow.

A repeat drink driver has travelled overseas to have an anti-booze drug implanted in his arm - and this week his lawyer will argue the radical move should keep him out of jail.

The World Health Organisation bungled efforts to halt the spread of Ebola in West Africa, an internal report revealed Friday.

Queensland Premier Campbell Newman has offered support for clinical trials of medicinal marijuana being considered in New South Wales.

A British woman died in France after her doctor was reported to have been drunk and to have botched her care during childbirth.

A Christchurch hospice has been told to review its practices after a coroner found a patient in its care was administered the wrong dosage of a pain relief drug and died four hours later.

Taking paracetamol while pregnant increases the risk of behavioural problems in school-age children, according to new NZ research.

Andrea Miller is used to facing tough situations. As a senior army officer for 22 years, she's faced all sorts of challenges, including a UN peacekeeping tour to East Timor.