Christina Jewett

Christina Jewett was a senior correspondent for KFF Health News until November 2021.

@by_cjewett

Despite Red Flags At Surgery Centers, Overseers Award Gold Seals

A decade ago, California stopped licensing surgery centers and then gave approval power to private accreditors that are commonly paid by the same centers they inspect. That system of oversight has created a troubling legacy of laxity, a Kaiser Health News investigation finds.

Lax Oversight Leaves Surgery Center Regulators And Patients In The Dark

A Kaiser Health News and USA Today Network investigation finds that a hodgepodge of state rules governing outpatient centers allow some deaths and serious injuries to go unexamined. And no rule stops a doctor exiled by a hospital for misconduct from opening a surgery center down the street.

Defendants In Diapers? Immigrant Toddlers Ordered To Appear In Court Alone

Children who have been separated from their parents at the border, some as young as 3, are being ordered to appear for their own deportation proceedings, attorneys say. One legal advocate in Los Angeles described a scene in which a 3-year-old who’d received an order to appear started climbing up on the table during the proceeding, highlighting “the absurdity of what we’re doing with these kids.”