Latest California Healthline Stories
Readers and Tweeters Feel Americans’ Pain
KHN gives readers a chance to comment on a recent batch of stories.
Hospitals Confront Climate Change as Patients Sick From Floods and Fires Crowd ERs
Patients sickened in heat waves, flooding and wildfire have raised awareness of climate change’s impact on health. Now, some hospitals are building solar panels and cutting waste to reduce their own carbon footprints, with support from a new office at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. But the industry is moving slowly.
The Part of the ‘Free Britney’ Saga That Could Happen to Anyone
Britney Spears was forced into psychiatric care — and compelled to pay for it. That can happen to any patient who has an episode of serious mental illness, piling financial woes onto their stress and vulnerability.
La parte del drama de Britney Spears que miles de personas están sufriendo
Hay poca información, pero se estima que aproximadamente 2 millones de pacientes psiquiátricos son hospitalizados cada año en los Estados Unidos, casi la mitad contra su voluntad.
At an Overrun ICU, ‘the Problem Is We Are Running Out of Hallways’
Billings Clinic in Montana is past the tipping point as it looks for places to add intensive care unit beds and is on the cusp of rationing care to deal with the surge of sick covid patients in a state with significant anti-vaccination sentiment.
‘An Arm and a Leg’: They Turned Grief Into Action
This episode highlights how New York enacted a charity care law, one of the precursors to the federal provision on charity care in the Affordable Care Act.
Covid-Overwhelmed Hospitals Postpone Cancer Care and Other Treatment
Patients with advanced cancer and heart disease are among those who have had to have surgeries and other treatments delayed and rescheduled as a high number of critically ill, unvaccinated covid patients strain the medical system.
ICUs Are Filled With Covid — And Regret
Unvaccinated people are filling intensive care beds and dying of covid in record numbers in Tennessee and other Southern states. Many tell their nurses and doctors they regret the decision not to get the vaccine when they could.
ECMO Life Support Is a Last Resort for Covid, and in Short Supply in South
Many more people could benefit from the lifesaving treatment than are receiving it, which has made for messy triaging as the delta variant surges across the South and in rural communities with low covid vaccination rates.
Lack of a Vaccine Mandate Becomes Competitive Advantage in Hospital Staffing Wars
After months of burnout from the pandemic, hospitals are scrambling to fill nursing and other jobs. Some administrators, particularly in rural areas, are afraid to implement vaccine mandates that alienate their short-handed staffs.