A federal judge has approved a trust fund set up by Ford Motor Co. that will cover about 200,000 UAW-represented Ford retirees and their surviving spouses in the United States. The United Auto Workers will pay retiree healthcare bills for union members.
Federal judges approved similar agreements between the UAW and General Motors Corp. and Chrysler LLC earlier this year. All three automakers are scheduled to shift their retiree healthcare obligations to the voluntary employees beneficiary association funds on Jan. 1, 2010.
As its economy collapses, Zimbabwe doctors are advising Zimbabweans to not get sick, and if they do to not count on hospitals. A laboratory at a main 1,000-bed hospital has virtually shut down, and X-ray materials, injectable antibiotics, and anticonvulsants have run out. Emergency resuscitation equipment is also out of action, and patients needing casts for broken bones need to bring their own plaster. Health authorities blame problem on the drying up of foreign aid under Western sanctions imposed to end political and human rights abuses under President Robert Mugabe.
New Orleans hospitals have evacuated elderly patients, infants in incubators, and others among the city's most vulnerable ill residents via a fleet of ambulances. The evacuations underscore the effort by local health officials to avoid the missteps that occurred during Hurricane Katrina three years ago, when some critically sick people were left virtually abandoned in flooded, powerless medical facilities and nursing homes. The patients were taken to the airport for transport to hospitals farther east, in Florida and North Carolina. Gov. Bobby Jindal said in a news conference that officials have received unconfirmed reports of three patients dying in transport.
Florida's nursing shortage will become "crippling" in a decade unless health officials quickly train many more nurses and retain more of the ones they have, according to a report from the state-funded Florida Center for Nursing. The current shortfall of 11,000 registered nurses would balloon to 52,000 by 2020 and would start to hurt healthcare within six years if the situation does not improve soon, according to the report. To avoid a huge shortage, the report estimated that registered-nurse graduates would have to rise by 15% yearly. Also, the report urged hospitals to try harder to retain nurses, such as by easing workloads and stress.
Unionized healthcare workers began a 24-hour strike on August 28 at five California hospitals operated by the Daughters of Charity Health System. Food-service workers, radiology technicians, housekeeping staff, and other employees represented by the union have been without a contract since the previous one expired in April. Unresolved issues include wages, benefits, and employee involvement in staffing decisions. The union represents about 2,000 employees at the five hospitals.
Doctors at Wayne State University Medical School, working primarily through the Detroit Medical Center, are feeling the financial and academic strain of treating 70% of the Detroit's estimated 200,000 uninsured residents. The uncompensated care means less money coming into Wayne State University to support programs and make infrastructure improvements necessary to attract top-notch physicians and highly qualified students. School representatives puts the total cost of uncompensated care by Wayne State medical school doctors at about $50 million each year.