Pro-Palestinian employees at Massachusetts General Hospital canceled a "Vigil for Palestine" scheduled to be held outside the hospital on Wednesday after a top administrator insisted it be renamed a "Vigil for Peace" and moved indoors. Anna Brown, a senior vice president and chief diversity, equity, and inclusion officer for the hospital's parent organization, Mass General Brigham, emailed organizers of the vigil to say that an online flyer advertising the event planned on the campus's Bulfinch Lawn needed to be reworded. In addition to announcing that a "Silent Vigil for Palestine" was to take place Wednesday afternoon for 15 minutes, the flyer, shared on a listserv for MGH employees interested in social justice, said, "Not another child. Not another hospital. Not another bomb." Brown objected to all wording that linked the event to Israel's military campaign in Gaza.
Robert F. Kennedy Jr., an anti-vaccine activist and environmentalist, for years gained a loyal and fierce following with his biting condemnations of how the nation's public health agencies do business. And that's put him on a direct collision course with some of the 80,000 scientists, researchers, doctors and other officials who work for HHS, especially with President-elect Donald Trump tapping him to head the agency. If confirmed, Kennedy will control the world's largest public health agency, and its $1.7 trillion budget.
President-elect Donald Trump on Thursday has nominated Robert F. Kennedy Jr., an anti-vaccine activist who dropped out of the 2024 presidential race and endorsed Trump, to lead HHS. Donald Trump Jr. shared the news on X, and a source familiar confirmed it with NBC News. During his presidential campaign, Kennedy developed a national profile for his criticism of the COVID vaccine and childhood immunizations. He has claimed that vaccines are tied to autism, despite evidence conveyed through studies over decades that have disproven such a claim. The appointment of Kennedy, 70, to lead HHS ends days of speculation about what health role — if any — the former independent presidential candidate turned Trump advisor would play in the incoming administration.
Baystate Health is laying off 134 employees in management positions, about 1% of its workforce. The not-for-profit says the layoffs across all of its hospitals will improve efficiency and reduce costs without affecting bedside care. And that it's still recruiting and hiring physicians, other providers and caregivers. The announcement comes nearly six weeks after CEO Peter Banko issued a statement saying Baystate has had more than $300 million in operational losses in the past few years. This week Baystate said its 'weakened financial position' is 'severely limiting its ability to invest' in staff and meet community needs. And by making these changes and others it'll be able to invest $1.2 billion into the organization in the next six years. Medicare and Medicaid patients make up most of Baystate's revenue- and it says neither adequately covers the cost of care.
After 55 years of practice and serving the community, the Children's Medical Center Martinsville has made the difficult decision to close its doors permanently on Jan. 1. The medical center said the announcement came after "unavoidable financial hardship." Patients are still currently able to receive care as the center will continue to provide services through Dec. 31.
If you're one of millions of Missourians living in a smaller community, hospital consolidations can be disastrous. Consolidation in such places almost invariably drives down the availability of basic healthcare to residents, compromising competition and inevitably driving up insurance costs. Even worse, these newly minted mega-hospitals deploy their increased market-share to drive down the salaries of the healthcare providers upon whom their communities depend. While one might assume that such a thing would at least lead to better patient outcomes, there is no evidence for that at all.