Emergency medicine specialists are trained to handle unpredictable life or death situations, but the relentless pace of their profession may be cutting their own lives short.
Healthcare is undergoing a major paradigm shift. Some clinicians are shifting away from treating chronic conditions such as hypertension, heart disease, diabetes, back pain and fatigue — long the bread and butter of primary-care medicine — and toward targeting their common root cause: obesity.
Floridians expect and deserve the best healthcare. To deliver on this expectation today, tomorrow, and well into the future, we must continue to tackle the healthcare workforce shortage of physicians, nurses, and allied health professionals to support our vision of worldclass care close to home.
Gov. Gavin Newsom this weekend vetoed a bill that was meant to slow closures of labor wards but signed a law that will give communities more time to plan for the loss of that service. At least 56 maternity wards have closed across California since 2012. The closures have happened in both rural and urban areas, resulting in long drive times for patients and overwhelmed obstetrics departments in neighboring communities. At the same time, rates of maternal mortality and complications are increasing. The new law requires hospitals to notify county government 120 days before closing a labor and delivery or psychiatric unit. The notification would also include a public hearing. Hospitals are currently required to provide notice 90 days before an impending closure.
A hospital in Eureka, Calif. illegally denied a pregnant woman an emergency abortion earlier this year, state prosecutors allege in a new lawsuit. The patient, Anna Nusslock, was 15 weeks pregnant with twins when her water broke, the lawsuit claims. Her doctor said the pregnancy was no longer viable and recommended an emergency abortion. But her healthcare providers at Providence St. Joseph Hospital Eureka in Humboldt County declined to perform the procedure. The hospital has a policy that "prohibits doctors and nurses from providing emergency abortion care so long as a fetus … has a detectable heartbeat," Attorney General Rob Bonta said in a press conference Monday morning.