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.
Major inequalities in health and life expectancy persist worldwide, according to an independent World Health Organization commission which has called for all countries to offer universal healthcare. The sustainability of healthcare systems is a concern for all countries amid growing "commercialization" of services, according to the commission. The commission favored financing healthcare through general taxation and/or mandatory universal insurance.
Christina Applegate is the latest celebrity to find her medical troubles in a tabloid. Patrick Swayze, Britney Spears, Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes, Dennis Quaid, George Clooney, and Farrah Fawcett have all in recent years have seen information from their medical records, or those of loved ones, spread in the press and on the Internet without their permission and sometimes in violation of the law. In response, celebrities can insist the leaker be prosecuted or sue the outlet that paid for and published the leak for invasion of privacy. But both would take a long time, cost a lot of money, perpetuate the leak and even force more disclosures of records. In addition, they might not win and the story of their medical condition will live forever in the media.
Pacific Northwest University of Health Sciences has laid out plans for two more colleges, intending to ease shortages of additional healthcare professionals in its surrounding region. The board of directors voted to open two additional colleges, possibly as early as next fall: the College of Allied Health Sciences and the College of Biomedical Sciences. Seventy percent of the college's enrolled students are from the Pacific Northwest, and the college has agreements with hospitals, clinics, and doctors in Alaska, Washington, Oregon, Idaho, and Montana to provide clinical training to students in their third and fourth years.
A group of 61 union nurses and technicians has filed a complaint with Nevada regulators accusing two Las Vegas hospitals of unsafe practices. The complaint says Desert Springs and Valley hospitals have violated seven laws intended to protect patients. It also claims to identify 84 instances between Dec. 2006 and June 10 in which hospital management deliberately disregarded nurse's objections to unsafe patient care assignments.
Alabama has announced it will be the first state to charge overweight state workers who don't work on slimming down. Officials have given the state's 37,527 employees a year to start getting fit, or they'll pay $25 a month for insurance that otherwise is free. The State Employees' Insurance Board will apply the obesity charge to anyone with a body mass index of 35 or higher who is not making progress on losing weight.