Historic rainfall and flooding brought by the remnants of Hurricane Helene have pushed western North Carolina hospitals into 'managed chaos.' Power outages forced many hospitals to rely on backup generators for several days. Widespread water system failures required alternative water supplies for hospitals that use tremendous amounts of water while handwashing, sterilizing surgical equipment and more. Impassable roads blocked by fallen trees and other wreckage disrupted travel for workers and patients alike. Communication disruptions made receiving calls and texts in some areas impossible, straining responses. But amid these challenges, all western North Carolina hospitals have remained operational throughout Hurricane Helene and its aftermath.
The strike at 36 ports handling one-half of U.S. ocean imports could cost the economy $5 billion a day and will affect healthcare.
Updated, Oct. 1, 2024:
Reuters reports that dockworkers on the U.S. East Coast and Gulf Coast began a strike early on Tuesday, their first large-scale stoppage in nearly 50 years, halting the flow of about half the nation's ocean shipping after negotiations for a new labor contract broke down over wages.
The International Longshoremen's Association rejected United States Maritime Alliance final proposal made on Monday, adding the offer fell "far short of the demands of its members to ratify a new contract".
Updated, Sept. 30, 2024:
The Associated Press is reporting that a port strike by 45,000 dockworkers employed at 36 US ports "is all but certain" at midnight, October 1. President Joe Biden has to date resisted calls, such as one from the National Association of Wholesaler-Distributors, to intervene. However, according to the AP, “If a strike were deemed a danger to U.S. economic health, President Joe Biden could, under the 1947 Taft-Hartley Act, seek a court order for an 80-day cooling-off period. This would suspend the strike.”
According to Tony Pelli, director of supply chain security and resilience at BSI Americas, “It may take a couple of weeks to see an impact on the price of goods in the U.S. In some cases, companies may have increased inventory at U.S. warehouses or shifted (to the extent possible) to West Coast ports in anticipation of such an event. However, most are operating just-in-time supply chains to reduce inventory costs, so they likely haven't taken these steps. It’s unlikely that stores have already raised prices, but that could happen fairly quickly following a strike, as West Coast ports do not have the capacity to handle the excess volume. This could lead to a return of the container backlogs we saw at West Coast ports during the pandemic.”
Updated, Sept. 27, 2024:
“Several ports have already scheduled planned shutdowns of all port operations ahead of the potential strike from the afternoon of September 30, including: Port of Houston, Port of New Orleans, Port of Norfolk and Port of Mobile," said Mirko Woitzik, global director of Intelligence for Everstream Analytic on September 27. "More will likely send out announcements over the coming days. Shipping lines could revert to a port-hopping strategy in the first week of a possible strike to allow their ships to unload cargo, calling at Caribbean transshipment hubs such as at Freeport in the Bahamas or at gateways in Mexico or Canada.”
Steward Health Care CEO Ralph de la Torre filed a lawsuit Monday against a U.S. Senate committee that pursued contempt charges against him for failing to appear before the panel despite being issued a subpoena. The lawsuit, filed in federal court in Washington, named nearly all members of the HELP Committee, including Sen. Bernie Sanders, who chairs the committee which has investigated Steward's bankruptcy. The lawsuit claims that the lawmakers are unlawfully violating de la Torre's constitutional rights. It alleges that the members of the committee, by trying to compel de la Torre to answer questions about Steward's bankruptcy, are "collectively undertaking a concerted effort to punish Dr. de la Torre for invoking his Fifth Amendment right not to 'be compelled . . . to be a witness against himself.'"
A federal judge will allow bankrupt Steward Health Care to complete the sales of six Massachusetts hospitals to nonprofit buyers. But the state will have to pay Steward's lenders as much as $5 million more for the deals to close as planned Monday. The early morning ruling resolved a potential snag in the deals amid last-minute squabbling among Steward's creditors. And it capped a turbulent weekend for Steward as it approaches its final hours doing business in Massachusetts. The ruling, by Judge Christopher Lopez, also underscores the soaring public cost of rescuing the company's struggling hospitals. The bailouts could cost the state, the U.S. government, and other hospitals upward of 700 million dollars in coming years.
Steward Health Care CEO Ralph de la Torre has overseen a network of some 30 hospitals around the country. The Texas-based company's troubled recent history has drawn scrutiny from elected officials in New England, where some of its hospitals are located. A spokesperson for de la Torre told CBS News in a statement Saturday that he "has amicably separated from Steward on mutually agreeable terms' and 'will continue to be a tireless advocate for the improvement of reimbursement rates for the underprivileged patient population.' The spokesperson added that de la Torre 'believes Steward's financial challenges put a much-needed spotlight on Massachusetts's ongoing failure to fix its healthcare structure and the inequities in its state system.' A CBS News investigation that spanned nearly two years documented how private equity investors and de la Torre extracted hundreds of millions of dollars while healthcare workers and patients struggled to get the life-saving supplies they needed.
Steward Health Care CEO Ralph de la Torre fired back Thursday at lawmakers trying to force him to testify about the downfall of the hospital chain he runs. Hours after the U.S. Senate on Wednesday unanimously asked DOJ to prosecute de la Torre for criminal contempt of Congress — the first such referral since 1971 — the executive issued a statement saying he would "not be intimidated" by the move. De la Torre was disappointed the Senate decided "to continue their violations of Dr. de la Torre's constitutional rights, particularly those protected under the 5th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution," a spokesperson told the Globe in an early morning email after the vote. "The U.S. Constitution stands above the government to protect all Americans from precisely the kind of assault on our rights that we are witnessing here."