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California Healthline Original Stories
UCSF Medical Center Backs Off Plan To Deepen Ties With Dignity Health
The University of California’s flagship San Francisco hospital system cut off negotiations with the Catholic-run health care system in the face of heated opposition from UCSF faculty and staff. (Jenny Gold, )
Good morning! Here are your top California health care stories of the day.
'Conscience' Rule Would Create Confusion, Erode Trust Between Patient And Doctor, Civil Rights Groups Claim In Suit: A coalition of civil rights groups on Tuesday filed a lawsuit against the Trump administration, asking a federal judge to strike down a recently issued "conscience protection" rule that allows health care providers to refuse to provide care on the basis of their religious beliefs. The suit, filed in coordination with Santa Clara County in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, argues the rule is unconstitutional. The plaintiffs represent a diverse group of health-care providers, community centers and LGBTQ and women’s rights groups across the country — from Seattle and Los Angeles to Allentown, Pa., and Washington, D.C. They emphasized that while transgender individuals may be most vulnerable to discrimination under the rule, it would affect all Americans. “This rule erodes trust between patients and providers,” said Jamie Gliksberg, senior attorney at Lambda Legal. Gliksberg said there has always been a balance between patients’ right to care and providers’ right to decline services such as abortion, assisted suicide and sterilization. The new policy, she said, “disturbs that balance.” It “creates a wholly new regime that elevates religious objections over all other interests and values," according to the complaint. San Francisco and the state of California are also challenging the rule. Read more from the San Francisco Chronicle, The Washington Post and The Hill.
San Francisco Wants To Put Universal Mental Health Care On Ballot In November: San Francisco Supervisors Hillary Ronen and Matt Haney want the city to offer free mental health care and substance abuse treatment to any city resident in need. "We have a crisis of people who are severely addicted to drugs and that have severe mental health illnesses that are wandering the street and that desperately need help," Ronen said in an interview Tuesday morning. The plan, which would be called Mental Health SF, would be similar to the city's Healthy San Francisco program that offers health care services to uninsured city residents. It would provide treatment to anyone who has a mental health illness or substance addiction and asks for help — even if they have health insurance. Read more from Ted Goldberg and April Dembosky of KQED.
UCSF Abruptly Ends Three Years Of Negotiations With Dignity Health Following Outcry Over Health System’s Religious Restrictions: More than 1,500 UCSF doctors and hospital staff signed a petition last month opposing UCSF’s effort to expand its two-year collaboration with Dignity Health on grounds that the religious hospitals discriminate against women and LGBT patients. The critics, who have urged the UC regents to end the collaboration altogether, have said they were appalled that UC appeared willing to endorse the Catholic hospitals’ refusal, to varying degrees, to perform such medical procedures as abortions, sterilizations and transgender surgery. Dignity hospitals are bound by ethical and religious directives from the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops. Among other prohibitions, Dignity hospitals ban abortions unless the mother’s life is at risk, in vitro fertilization and physician-assisted death. Twenty-four of Dignity’s 39 hospitals prohibit contraception services and gender-confirming care for transgender people, such as hormone therapy and surgical procedures. Read more from Nanette Asimov of the San Francisco Chronicle and Jenny Gold of California Healthline.
Below, check out the full round-up of California Healthline original stories, state coverage and the best of the rest of the national news for the day.
More News From Across The State
inewsource:
Diabetes Clinic Founder Headed To Prison For Attempted Bribery
The man who marketed a dubious treatment for diabetes internationally has been sentenced to 12 months in confinement – six of it in federal prison — stemming from a pay-to-play bribery conviction in Alabama. The nation has a limited supply of healthcare dollars to spend on drugs and services, which is why the government and health plans require scientific evidence of patient benefit. This is especially important for the 30.3 million people in the U.S. with diabetes, whose medical costs in 2012 totaled $245 billion.G. Ford Gilbert, a Sacramento lawyer whose law license was suspended earlier this month, was the subject of an inewsource investigation published last year. Gilbert claimed his infusion protocol reversed complications of diabetes, and he assured dozens of Trina Health clinic investors that Medicare and private insurance would cover it. (Clark, 5/28)
Sacramento Bee:
Nurses Protest At Tenet Hospitals In CA Over Breaks, Overtime
Nurses picketed outside Tenet-affiliated hospitals across California on Tuesday afternoon in a union-organized event meant to urge management to invest in nursing staff. More than 3,700 registered nurses represented by the California Nurses Association at eight California hospitals are in ongoing contract negotiations that began in September 2018 with the Dallas-based Tenet Healthcare Corporation. (Vaughan, 5/28)
San Francisco Chronicle:
Citing Chronic Understaffing, SF Nurses Plan To Hit Health Department With ‘No Confidence’ Letter
More than 1,300 San Francisco nurses have signed on to a “no-confidence” letter they intend to send to leaders at the Department of Public Health on Thursday to protest what they’ve long claimed is a chronic understaffing of nurses throughout the city’s health care system. Despite playing critical roles on the front lines of the city’s mounting homelessness, mental health and drug addiction crises, nurses say they’re running on fumes, with conditions forcing them to take on more patients, skip breaks and work overtime. (Fracassa, 5/28)
Los Angeles Times:
The West Has Many Wildfires, But Too Few Prescribed Burns, Study Finds
President Trump has laid the blame for out-of-control California wildfires on the state’s “gross mismanagement” of its forests. Former Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke pointed the finger at “environmental terrorist groups.” But according to a new study, the federal government is not doing enough to control the threat of wildfire in the West. (Phillips, 5/29)
NPR:
After Paradise, Living With Fire Means Redefining Resilience
Dan Efseaff, the parks and recreation director for the devastated town of Paradise, Calif., looks out over Little Feather River Canyon in Butte County. The Camp Fire raced up this canyon like a blowtorch in a paper funnel on its way to Paradise, incinerating most everything in its path, including scores of homes. Efseaff is floating an idea that some may think radical: paying people not to rebuild in this slice of canyon: "The whole community needs some defensible space," he says. (Westervelt, 5/29)
San Francisco Chronicle:
No Hallucination: Oakland A Step Closer To Approving Use Of ’Shroom
The Oakland City Council’s public safety committee approved a resolution Tuesday to decriminalize certain natural psychedelics, including mushrooms, paving the way for Oakland to become the second city in the country to do so. The resolution, introduced by committee chairman Noel Gallo, instructs law enforcement to stop investigating and prosecuting people using the drugs. (Ravani, 5/28)
Sacramento Bee:
Oakland May Decriminalize Mushrooms: Drug, Legalization Facts
Oakland leaders are meeting on Tuesday night to consider decriminalizing so-called “magic mushrooms.” That would make the Northern California city the second in the United States to allow adults over 21 to possess psilocybin, the ingredient that gives “magic mushrooms” their hallucinogenic effects. (Gilmour, 5/28)
San Francisco Chronicle:
Tech Project Aims To Help Nonprofits Better Serve People In Need
Benetech, a Palo Alto nonprofit that harnesses software for social good, is seeking to address that issue with a program called Benetech Service Net. It’s almost halfway through a six-month pilot with six Bay Area social-service agencies to collaborate on maintaining their crucial databases of local resources through an open-standards data exchange. (Said, 5/29)
KQED:
Inside San Francisco's First-Of-Its-Kind Shelter For Transgender Youth
Among the dozens of Victorian homes in San Francisco's Haight-Ashbury district sits the only long-term transitional living program in the state specifically designed for transgender youth. The program, which is run by Larkin Street Youth Services, opened quietly back in February. (Wiley, 5/28)
KQED:
‘We Have No Choice’: San Diego Officials Coping With Influx Of Migrants, Flu Outbreak
In recent days, county health officials and a coalition of nonprofits and faith-based organizations known as the San Diego Rapid Response Network have been responding to a flu outbreak among migrants recently arrived on government-chartered flights from south Texas Border Patrol facilities. Hopkins and others say San Diego is well-equipped to deal with the flu outbreak because the immigrant service organizations have been getting support for months from the state and local governments to respond to the needs of earlier waves of migrants. (Hall, 5/28)
Los Angeles Times:
Black Market Cannabis Shops Thrive In L.A. Even As City Cracks Down
Amid growing complaints from lawmakers and cannabis lobbyists about the city’s teeming marketplace for unregulated weed, Los Angeles in recent months has ramped up enforcement against illegal pot dispensaries. But with so much money on the line, many violators are choosing to stay open even after the city has cut off their power or threatened them with arrests or fines. (Queally and Welsh, 5/29)
Modesto Bee:
Stanislaus County To Conduct Pilot Project Cultivating Hemp
Stanislaus County is taking a step toward allowing regulated industrial hemp production on farm land with a one-year pilot project. Staff members were directed last week to quickly develop a limited trial so some farmers gain experience in cultivation techniques. (Carlson, 5/28)
KQED:
Retired California Chef Builds Community Through His Volunteer Cooking
Volunteering often can provide older adults with a sense of purpose and connection to others that is linked to physical and emotional health benefits, especially after they’ve left the workforce, according to a review of research by the Corporation for National and Community Service, a federal agency. Likewise, communities can greatly benefit from the accumulated skills and experience that a growing pool of retirees in California offer, experts say. (Romero, 5/29)
The Associated Press:
2020 Candidate Kamala Harris Targets State Abortion Bans
Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris said Tuesday that if she won the White House, she would require states seeking to restrict abortion laws to first obtain federal approval. The senator from California said she would back legislation requiring states with a history of restricting abortion rights to receive clearance from the Justice Department to change abortion laws. (5/28)
The New York Times:
Missouri’s Last Abortion Clinic Could Stop Providing The Procedure This Week
Missouri’s last abortion clinic might have to stop providing the procedure by the end of the week because of a standoff with state officials over an audit, according to Planned Parenthood, which operates the clinic. Lawyers for the clinic say that the audit, which began this spring, has become wide-ranging and includes demands they consider to be unreasonable. They say the clinic’s license is due to expire at midnight on June 1, and if the disagreement over the audit is not sorted out by then, the clinic will be forced to stop providing abortions. (Tavernise, 5/28)
The Washington Post Fact Checker:
Planned Parenthood’s False Stat: ‘Thousands’ Of Women Died Every Year Before Roe
A reader asked us to investigate this repeated claim by the president of Planned Parenthood — that “thousands of women” died every year from botched abortions before the Supreme Court in 1973 nullified antiabortion laws across the United States in Roe v. Wade. This turned out to be an interesting inquiry, taking The Fact Checker through a tour of decades of musty academic literature. Statisticians had tried to parse data on what was, for the most part, an illegal act. Unplanned pregnancy and abortions were deeply shameful at the time, so the official statistics were not necessarily reliable indicators of mortality rates from abortion. (Kessler, 5/29)
The Washington Post:
Netflix Becomes The First Major Hollywood Studio To Speak Out Against Georgia’s Abortion Law
Ever since Georgia passed a “heartbeat bill” earlier this month, there has been a growing pressure in Hollywood to speak out, given that the state has become a major production hub for film and television due to generous tax incentives. Some celebrities have vowed to boycott Georgia if the law is officially implemented in January, while others will instead donate earnings to organizations fighting against it. But it wasn’t until Tuesday that a major Hollywood studio contributed to the conversation. Netflix Chief Content Officer Ted Sarandos declared that while the streaming giant wouldn’t yet refrain from working in Georgia, it would partner with organizations in the legal fight against the law, which is among the most restrictive in the nation. (Rao, 5/28)
The New York Times:
Oklahoma Faces Off Against J & J In First Trial Of An Opioid Maker
Opening statements in the country’s first trial over whether a pharmaceutical company is liable for the opioid crisis began as a battle between fire and ice: Lawyers for Oklahoma, a state brought to its knees by addiction and overdose deaths, heatedly accused Johnson & Johnson of creating a deadly demand for the drugs, while the company coolly responded that it had acted responsibly and lawfully in its quest to offer relief to chronic pain patients. (Hoffman, 5/28)
The Associated Press:
Can A Business Owner Require Staffers To Get Vaccinated?
Small business owners worried about the spread of measles may want to be sure their staffers have been vaccinated, but before issuing any orders, they should speak with a labor law attorney or human resources consultant. An employer generally is prohibited from requiring employees to undergo medical procedures including vaccinations under the Americans with Disabilities Act; a company that tries to force staffers to be vaccinated can find itself being sued by angry workers. But there can be exceptions, especially in places where there's a measles outbreak or where government officials have ordered vaccinations to protect the public's health. (5/28)
The Washington Post:
The Crush Of Children At Arizona’s Border Shows A U.S. Immigration System On The Brink
Central American parents and children started pouring into this desert border community faster than anyone had predicted. Out of desperation, the Salvation Army opened a shelter in a strip mall in March, thinking it would be temporary. At first, they had 50 people. Then 150. Then the numbers doubled by the week. Churches issued urgent calls for diapers, baby formula, coloring books and crayons. Aid workers flew in from Washington. The mayor, who opposes illegal immigration, declared an emergency and implored the White House to help because the flow of people coming out of federal detention at the border was unlike anything Yuma had ever seen. (Sacchetti, 5/28)