Vanderbilt University Medical Center (VUMC) was recently denied approval from building its proposed 48-bed hospital in Rutherford County, according to reports.
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Henry County Medical Center recently announced that it will suspend obstetric services for the “foreseeable future” beginning in September.
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A gunman opened fire at a Fourth of July parade in Monday in a Chicago suburb, killing at least five people and wounding several others.
The suspect remains at large, and police are reportedly patrolling the area.
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A member of parliament in the U.K. said Wednesday that a hospital told police an alleged rape could not have really occurred because the attacker was transgender, according to The Telegraph.
Baroness Nicholson of Winterbourne, a member of parliament, told the House of Lords that it took a year for the hospital to acknowledge there was a male in the ward where the rape allegedly occurred. The victim reported the alleged rape more than a year ago, but hospital staff told police officers “that there was no male in the hospital, therefore the rape could not have happened,” the Telegraph reported.
Her comments came during a debate on a policy called Annex B, which allows patients to be placed in single-sex hospital wards based on self-identification of gender, according to the Telegraph.
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Minnesota taxpayers will pay $157,000 in fiscal year 2023 from its special revenue fund to the Board of Nursing to join the Nurse Licensure Compact if SF 2302 becomes law.
The base of the appropriation is $6,000 in fiscal year 2024 and $6,000 in fiscal year 2025, according to the bill, which the Senate passed in a 35-32 vote Monday. A motion to re-refer the bill to the Civil Law and Data Practices Policy committee was struck down in a 31-36 vote.
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There are no real explanations as to how race and “equity” will come into play in deciding who gets the new coronavirus antiviral pills.
Wisconsin’s Department of Health Services earlier this month said “equity” would be at the heart of the state’s strategy to distribute the new pills from Pfizer and Merck.
“We are committed to distributing these pills equitably across the state, and access will increase as Wisconsin receives more allocations from the federal government,” DHS said in a statement.
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Ahead of a U.S. Supreme Court ruling on vaccine mandates expected as early as this week, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control is under increased scrutiny after recent comments about COVID-19 deaths.
CDC Director Rochelle Walensky fell into controversy after a clip of her appearance on Good Morning America Friday went viral.
“I want to ask you about the encouraging headlines we’re talking about this morning, a new study talking about just how well vaccines are working to prevent severe illness,” co-host Cecilia Vega said on Good Morning America. “Given that, is it time to rethink how we’re living with this virus if it is potentially here to stay?”
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Days after Republican Gov. Mike Parson let emergency COVID-19 orders expire on Dec. 31, Missouri’s Department of Health and Senior Services (DHSS) reported significant increases in COVID-19 infections.
The DHSS dashboard on Monday showed 35,067 new confirmed cases during the last seven days, an 88.8% increase compared to the previous seven-day total. The seven-day positivity rate was 27.3%, an increase of 11.7 percentage points compared to the previous seven-day total. Many health organizations and agencies consider a positivity rate higher than 5 or 10% to be a predictor of rampant spread of sickness, resulting in increased hospitalizations and deaths.
“Thanks to the effectiveness of the vaccine, widespread efforts to mitigate the virus, and our committed health care professionals, past needs to continue the state of emergency are no longer present,” Parson said in a statement on Dec. 30, 2021. “Over the last 22 months, we have coordinated with local, state, and private partners to mitigate COVID-19 and work towards returning to normalcy. We all now know how to best fight and prevent serious illness from this virus. The State stands ready to provide assistance and response, but there is no longer a need for a state of emergency.”
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After unvaccinated healthcare workers were fired for refusing to comply with vaccine mandates, some are being asked to return to work due to staffing shortages amid increasing COVID-19 cases.
In Canada, for example, Alberta Health Services announced on Dec. 23 it will allow unvaccinated healthcare workers to resume their jobs starting Jan. 10 if they submit to frequent testing. AHS cited expected increased demands on the health system due to the spread of the Omicron variant for the policy change. As of the date of the announcement, 1,400 healthcare workers who were not fully vaccinated had been placed on unpaid leave.
AHS said that unvaccinated workers will be responsible for paying for and coordinating their COVID tests, which they must complete no more than 48 hours prior to their shifts.
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The U.S. Supreme Court declined Monday to hear a case from a Catholic hospital challenging a ruling that forces it to sterilize patients through gender transition surgery.
Evan Minton, a patient seeking uterus removal surgery as part of the gender transition process, will be allowed to go forward with suing the Mercy San Juan Medical Center for canceling the surgery.
Minton seeks to compel the hospital to perform surgeries that directly contravene Catholic teachings, Dignity Health, which operates Mercy San Juan, told the court. The case “poses a profound threat to faith-based health care institutions’ ability to advance their healing ministries consistent with the teachings of their faith,” according to Dignity Health’s petition.
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While many health care facilities are firing their unvaccinated employees amid a nationwide staffing shortage, some Minnesota companies are taking the opposite approach.
President Joe Biden announced earlier this month that all employers with over 100 employees will be required to institute a company-wide vaccine mandate or face massive recurring fines. Meanwhile, hospitals around the nation are facing nursing shortages that frontline workers say will only be made worse by the Biden mandate as unvaccinated nurses and other professionals are forced out of hospitals. The state government of New York, a nurse in Florida, a hospital CEO in Missouri, and 45% of all nursing homes report critical concern about how the vaccine mandate will impact the already-dwindling ranks of health care workers.
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According to data from the Tennessee Department of Education, the number of Tennessee school-aged children testing positive for COVID-19 the last 14 days has seen a significant drop in just 4 days.
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Gov. Gretchen Whitmer and the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services (MDHHS) secured a $13 million grant from the federal government to support COVID-19 testing and mitigation in 51 small, rural hospitals.
“Our top priority is supporting the brave professionals on the frontlines of our health care industry in every corner of our state to ensure that they have what they need to protect themselves, their family, and their neighbors,” Whitmer said in a statement. “This funding will help rural hospitals continue serving their communities by expanding their COVID-19 testing capacity and mitigation efforts. I want to thank the nurses, doctors, and all medical professionals who continue to go above and beyond to keep people safe each and every day.”
Rural hospitals with fewer than 50 staff will be able to use the funds from the federal Health Resources and Services Administration for testing equipment, personnel, temporary structures, or education. Mitigation strategies must follow the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) community mitigation framework, including education, contact tracing, communication, and outreach. Each hospital will receive about $257,000 that must be spent within 18 months of receipt.
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Gov. Gretchen Whitmer has signed Senate Bill 27 to appropriate $384.7 million in supplemental pandemic relief funding.
Signed by the governor on Monday afternoon, the bill also provides $10 million of financial support for Southeast Michigan families and businesses that endured massive flooding in June.
SB 27 was introduced by Sen. Jim Stamas, R-Midland, in January. The bill combines $367.7 million of federal COVID relief funding authorized through the Coronavirus Response and Relief Supplemental Appropriations Act and $17 million from the state’s general fund.
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According to the Tennessee Emergency Management Agency (TEMA), the now deconstructed Memphis and Nashville COVID-19 overflow emergency hospitals, created with a $51 million federal grant, never treated a single patient.
The facilities were intended to receive patients with “low to moderate acuity” cases of the novel coronavirus but with too high severity to warrant discharge home. They anticipated that patients would stay an average of four days.
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The president of the largest union of health care workers in the U.S. says it will fight companies requiring its members to have mandatory COVID-19 shots as a condition of employment.
The announcement came one day after Houston Methodist announced that 153 employees had been fired or resigned for refusing to get the shots as a condition of employment. Those suing argue requiring employees to receive a vaccine approved only through Emergency Use Authorization violates federal law. After a recent court dismissal, their attorney vowed to take the case all the way to the Supreme Court.
George Gresham, president of 1199SEIU United Healthcare Workers East, is weighing the organization’s legal options.
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Gov. Gretchen Whitmer has once again ditched her COVID-19 reopening plan, announcing the state will drop its COVID-19 restrictions on June 22. Her previous plan dropped restrictions on July 1.
“Today is a day that we have all been looking forward to, as we can safely get back to normal day-to-day activities and put this pandemic behind us,” Whitmer said in a statement.
Whitmer thanked those who received vaccinations. She also thanked medical staff and other frontline workers.
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Children and young adults are experiencing increased mental health issues, and suicide also is on the rise within the age group at least in part because of ongoing state shutdowns, according to several reports.
Within months of governors and local authorities shuttering schools, children were increasingly brought to emergency room doctors and specialists, according to a by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
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President Donald Trump’s announcement Monday that he was feeling good and would soon be able to leave Walter Reed Medical Center, left many in the Resistance media in angry, sputtering convulsions.
“I will be leaving the great Walter Reed Medical Center today at 6:30 P.M,” Trump tweeted Monday afternoon. “Feeling really good!”
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The United States Supreme Court ruled Monday that a pro-life law violates the rights of both women and abortion providers in Louisiana.
Chief Justice John Roberts sided with liberal members of the court in the close 5-4 ruling.
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After being delayed by more than a year, legal medicinal marijuana will finally be available in Ohio. Medicinal marijuana prescriptions, however, will be much harder to come by. 80 percent of doctors who are eligible to prescribe the drug have yet to register in the program. Of the few that did register, many only did so to stay abreast of new developments and not necessarily to prescribe. In addition, the overwhelming majority of hospitals have refused to participate in the program and have barred their physicians from prescribing the controversial drug. A majority of the 300 physicians who are registered to prescribe the drug operate private practices and are not attached to hospitals. Marijuana is still a Schedule I drug in the eyes of the federal government. This classification means, as far as the government is concerned: There is no accepted medical use, It has a high potential for abuse, It is among “the most dangerous drugs of all the drug schedules with potentially severe psychological or physical dependence.” For all the success medicinal marijuana has found with state legalization, this classification makes many hospitals fearful that, should laws change or the federal government crackdown on state legalization, they could find themselves facing severe fines, prison, and even the loss of…
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At a Las Vegas hospital Wednesday, President Trump visited some of the shooting victims and first responders from the mass shooting, and he invited some of the wounded to drop by the White House when they recover. “Believe me, I’ll be there for them,” Mr. Trump said. The president commended the professionalism of the medial staff…
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