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.
The American Hospital Association is right to raise concerns about proposed rule changes that could adversely affect payments for rural health clinics and federally qualified health centers. +
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.
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.
