Medical and surgical residents in hospitals should work no more than 16 hours without taking a mandatory five-hour sleep break, and they should get one full day off a week and at least two back-to-back days off a month, a panel of experts at the Institute of Medicine has recommended. The experts proposed work rules for physicians-in-training that are more restrictive than those that went into effect in 2003 but are widely violated. The panel also urged greater supervision of doctors in residencies.
Lawyers for the nine cardiologists who were suspended in 2004 from performing angioplasties at Hudson, FL-based Regional Medical Center Bayonet Point are now accusing the hospital of racial discrimination. Nine lawsuits say the hospital and its parent chain, HCA Inc., revoked the doctors' privileges and then failed to provide them with an appropriate appeal process because of their "race and ethnic characteristics." Five of the cardiologists are Indian, three are Arab, and one is Hispanic. In a written statement, hospital spokesman Kurt Conover said the suspensions resulted from a quality review by a third party of the hospital's catheterization lab.
Enrollment in Kentucky's Medicaid program is growing at an unprecedented rate of 3,000 members a month, creating a crisis for a state already struggling with a projected $456 million revenue shortfall. State officials blame the economy and job losses for record numbers of people signing up for the program. Medicaid Commissioner Elizabeth Johnson said her department had projected a growth rate of 1,000 people per month for the program, but "it just keeps going up."
The St. Bernard Parish Council has delayed a decision on shifting more than $13 million of federal money toward construction of a new hospital in the Louisiana parish, amid concerns that the money would slight other parish development projects. The hospital debate added to months of wrangling between the council and a public board appointed to oversee financing and construction of a hospital. St. Bernard has been without a hospital since Hurricane Katrina destroyed Chalmette Medical Center.
A hospital union official says Las Vegas-based Alta Vista Regional Hospital has laid off six union members, and says management is using excuses like cutbacks to let union members go in the past couple of weeks. Registered nurse Louie Rael says a union committee has been told that those who were terminated were being forced to make unreasonable changes—such as working hours that wouldn't fit their families' schedules.
President-elect Barack Obama has reassured the nation's cash-strapped governors that he will include them in plans to steady the economy with investments they say they desperately need in infrastructure and jobs. Obama flew to Philadelphia to meet with 49 of the nation's governors and governors-elect to discuss how the federal government can help them balance their budgets and provide basic services as the ranks of the poor grow and food and health-care programs are strained.