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Dozens of patients and medical personnel have to be evacuated after a fire broke out at a hospital in Partizansk, a town 170 kilometers of Vladivostok. There have been no reports of casualties or injuries from the blaze.
The fire started on the third floor of Partizansk city hospital after a roof of a building, housing an admissions ward, caught fire early Monday morning, the local emergencies ministry reported.
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Nearly three months into the coronavirus pandemic, and despite the deaths of more than 100 nurses from COVID-19, the majority of U.S. nurses say they are still not getting adequate protective equipment.
A survey of nearly 23,000 nurses, conducted by National Nurses United between April 15 and May 10, found a whopping 87 percent were still having to reuse single-use respirator masks with COVID-19 patients. More than a quarter had to reuse “decontaminated” masks—a new and relatively unstudied practice that has been proven to work for only a limited amount of time.
On top of this, just 16 percent of nurses surveyed said they had ever been tested for the virus, despite the fact that nearly three in four had treated a suspected or confirmed COVID-19 patient with their skin or clothing exposed.
“The richest country in the world will call nurses heroes without even bothering to invest in mass producing N95 respirators and other equipment to keep nurses alive,” Bonnie Castillo, the executive director of NNU, said in a statement. “Nurses signed up to care for their patients. They did not sign up to die needlessly on the front lines of a pandemic.”
The survey results mirror those of smaller questionnaires, like one circulated by the North Carolina Nurses Association earlier this month. Nearly 45 percent of nurses in the state said their hospital did not have enough PPE, and more than a quarter said the situation was worse than it was a month ago, according to results shared with The Daily Beast. Thirty percent said their facility could not conduct all the necessary COVID-19 testing.
A lack of personal protective equipment (PPE) has been a problem for frontline healthcare workers from the beginning of the crisis. The pandemic—and the interruption to global supply chains—exacerbated an existing shortage of gloves, gowns, and respirator masks, leaving some healthcare workers to buy their own equipment or even fashion it out of household items. In March, nearly half all U.S. healthcare facilities reported being out or almost out of respirator masks.
As more states move toward reopening, and hospitals start expanding the types of procedures they’re willing to perform, some nurses fear the situation will only get worse. Hospital workers told The Daily Beast earlier this month that they were still fighting for basic supplies like sanitizing wipes, even as their hospitals moved to expand the number of admitted patients.
Governors, meanwhile, have said they feel hamstrung by a lack of testing when trying to reopen their states.
Despite this, President Trump has continued to claim the U.S. has a “tremendous” supply of PPE and more than enough COVID-19 tests. At a White House event honoring first responders earlier this month, Trump contradicted the president of the American Association of Nurse Practitioners when she said that PPE supplies had been “sporadic,” saying: “Sporadic for you, but not sporadic for a lot of other people.”
Trump invoked the Defense Production Act in early April to speed up production of respirator masks, but it is unclear how effective the move has been. On multiple occasions, the White House gave production contracts to companies with no background in medical supplies—including a $55 million contract for N95s to a tactical training company. A White House task force on the issue was also reportedly hampered by inexperienced volunteers and requests for personal favors from the president’s Fox News friends.
In a press release, NNU called on Trump to implement “immediate protective measures” to prevent further risk to nurses.
“Our message to employers and the Trump administration is: Platitudes are empty without protections,” Castillo said. “For our sake, for the public’s sake—give us PPE.”
Shortly after asking “why the coronavirus did not kill more Russians,” Bloomberg illustrated a stinging op-ed with a graph suggesting Russia is far behind OECD states in hospital beds… though the exact opposite is true.
Everything’s fine if it fits the narrative, Bloomberg Opinion editors might have thought when they misquoted World Bank statistics on the number of hospital beds per 1,000 residents, including the misrepresented data in a Russia-bashing op-ed by Clara Ferreira Marques, titled ‘How Putin’s Russia Bungled the Pandemic’.
Taking a swipe at Russia’s efforts to upgrade the Soviet healthcare system to make it less cumbersome and more effective, the piece argued that the endeavor failed, only leading to a drop in hospitals, beds available, and doctors.
To back up the premise, the article featured a graph claiming to be based on 2013 data from the World Bank. However, according to the World Bank’s actual stats, while Russia had over twice as many beds in 2013 (8.2 versus 3.8 per 1,000), the initial version of the Bloomberg story had Russia lagging far behind the OECD countries by the same margin.
The blunder did not go unnoticed by the Russian Embassy in the US, which accused Bloomberg of promoting a new barrage of “politicized allegations” with “fake” stats.
“We demand that Bloomberg Opinion refute, apologize and respect its own customers,” the embassy said in a Facebook statement.
We are convinced that readers and viewers of the leading American media deserve verified, but not deliberately distorted, information.
Several hours after the embassy voiced its protest, Bloomberg Opinion amended the article, embedding a correct version of the graph instead of the misleading one.
The blunder came just days after Bloomberg ran another story about Covid-19 and Russia that raised some eyebrows. “Experts Want to Know Why Coronavirus Hasn’t Killed More Russians,” the initial headline stated, in what many commenters saw as the outlet’s disappointment in the country’s relatively low death toll. It has since been changed twice to sound more neutral.
Other Western media outlets seem to be taking the same misleading doom-and-gloom approach in covering Russia’s fight with the epidemic. Last week, CNN declared Moscow “devastated” based on the number of identified cases, which came with increasingly large-scale testing.
Meanwhile, the New York Times and Financial Times seem to imply that the Russian government is covering up the damage done by the epidemic with the creative use of official mortality statistics. The mystery of Russia’s low death toll was thus “solved” by the Western press. But when the Russian Embassy in the US tried to have the New York Times print comparative statistics for Moscow, New York City, and London to give readers some proper context, it refused, according to the diplomats.
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New York Governor Andrew Cuomo has demanded that the federal government bail out his state, or he’ll have to slash funding for hospitals, medical staff, and other local services – whose budgets he’s already cut to the bone.
The governor took aim at the Trump administration’s funding priorities during his Covid-19 press conference on Tuesday, waxing dramatic about political “values” as he accused Washington of shafting state governments with emergency coronavirus bailout packages that favored big banks and megacorporations.
“Why was Washington so quick to fund the corporations and big businesses, but now they have to think about whether they want to fund state governments and local governments?” Cuomo demanded, reminding his audience that local governments in turn fund hospitals, police, schools, and other “essential” services.
If you don’t fund New York state government, you know what that means? That means I have to cut aid to Northwell [Hospitals]. To hospitals. To nurses, to doctors. It means I have to cut aid to local governments that fund police and firefighters. I have to [cut] funding to schools and teachers.
Cuomo already deferred a raise for tens of thousands of state employees last month, including healthcare workers in the state’s prisons and mental health facilities.
The governor slammed Washington’s failure to shovel more money into the states as “offensive,” insisting it flew in the face of the government messaging depicting frontline workers as “heroes of the day,” and implying Congress owed them – and him – a few billion favors. “We give the federal government about 30 billion dollars more every year!” Cuomo protested.
“I understand the large corporations are the ones that fund the political accounts of these officials, but let them remember that they get elected by the people,” he added, demanding Congress and the White House “show the same consideration for the workers that you show for the corporations.”
That line of attack was more than a little ironic for a politician whose detractors have nicknamed him “Governor One Percent” for his unswerving fealty to his deep-pocketed donors. Cuomo’s devotion is such that in last month’s state budget he chose to saddle New York City with an additional $200 million in Medicaid costs rather than adopt any of a possible 14 tax-the-rich measures that could have helped close a yawning budget gap. Many of those measures had upwards of 90 percent support from voters, but their target – the richest .01 percent of state residents – was effectively off-limits.
The governor’s pandemic-era reinvention as a working-class healthcare hero also ignores his administration’s nine-year track record of deep cuts to the state hospital system. Over his tenure, New York lost some 20,000 hospital beds, consolidating, shuttering, and selling off multiple facilities – leaving the system overstressed even before the pandemic arrived.
The CARES Act passed in March provided funding to states from a $150 billion Coronavirus Relief Fund intended to cover all costs associated with the “public health emergency,” and billions more from other Covid-19 bailout programs have gone directly to hospitals. However, Cuomo is seeking more cash to assist with the economic reopening of his state, which has been largely locked down since it became the epicenter of the US Covid-19 epidemic in mid-March. Trump has largely left the decision to close down and reopen state economies to the governors, aside from social-distancing guidelines that expired at the end of last month.
Perhaps hedging his bets on whether the federal government steps up with the money, Cuomo has called in a trio of billionaires to participate in the state’s economic reopening, tasking former Google exec Eric Schmidt with “rebuilding” the state healthcare system, while former Microsoft CEO Bill Gates gets to remake the school system in his image, and former New York Mayor Mike Bloomberg runs the state contact-tracing program.
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A recent study based on New York medical system data has found that some 36.6% of patients diagnosed with the COVID-19 novel coronavirus also experienced acute kidney injury (AKI) and, in some cases, required dialysis to survive.
Northwell Health, the largest health provider in New York State, issued a news release on Thursday, highlighting large-scale research examining the “alarming number” of patients who developed AKI after being hospitalized for a positive COVID-19 diagnosis.
AKI is a condition that occurs in relation to a sudden episode of kidney failure or damage. Though treatable, a kidney injury of this kind can often lead to death because of the resultant inability to filter waste inside the human body.
During the study, a team of investigators with the Feinstein Institutes for Medical Research analyzed electronic health records (EHR) of 5,449 patients hospitalized with the novel coronavirus between March 1 and April 5.
Researchers determined that 1,993 novel coronavirus patients (36.6%) had developed AKI during their hospitalization. Moreover, 780 of those 1,993 COVID-19 patients (39.1%) who developed AKI remained hospitalized at the study’s conclusion.
The data analysis also showed “the link between respiratory failure and AKI was substantial.” Of all those hospitalized with the contagious respiratory disease, 285 patients required dialytic therapy at some point.
It was revealed that 1,068 (89.9%) of the 1,190 COVID-19 patients who needed mechanical ventilation also developed AKI. Additional dialysis therapy was also necessary for 276 patients who received mechanical ventilation and developed AKI while hospitalized with the virus.
Comparatively, only 9 (0.2%) of the 4,259 non-ventilated patients battling the novel coronavirus needed dialysis therapy.
“We hope to learn more about the COVID-19 related AKI in the coming weeks, and that by sharing what we have learned from our patients, other doctors and their patients can benefit,” said Kenar D. Jhaveri, a medical doctor and researcher at the Feinstein Institutes and corresponding author of the study.
Drs. Kenar Jhaveri and Steven Fishbane doing rounds at North Shore University Hospital on COVID-19 patients with acute kidney injury.
The team clarified that a number of risk factors are tied to the development of AKI, including, but not restricted to, age, cardiovascular disease, hypertension and diabetes mellitus.
“Researchers also found those of the Black race were at increased risk for developing AKI,” noted Northwell. According to the American Heart Association, hypertension and diabetes are more common among black Americans than non-Hispanic white Americans.
The complete study can be found in the peer-reviewed journal Kidney International.
By Susan Jaffe, Kaiser Health News
Coronavirus patients and their families who believe a doctor, nurse, hospital or other provider made serious mistakes during their care may face a new hurdle if they try to file medical malpractice lawsuits.
Under pressure from health provider organizations, governors in Connecticut, Maryland, Illinois and about a dozen other states have ordered that most providers be shielded from civil—and, in some cases, criminal—lawsuits over medical treatment during the COVID-19 health emergency. In New York and New Jersey, immunity is now part of state law. In California, six hospital, physician and long-term care provider groups are pressing Gov. Gavin Newsom to also issue an order assuring immunity.
The efforts are attracting congressional attention as well and threatening to derail the next federal coronavirus stimulus package on Capitol Hill. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell is demanding that Congress include liability protections against COVID-related suits for businesses and health care providers. The contentious issue of legal liability claims in health care has divided congressional Republicans and Democrats for years.
“We are not going to let health care heroes emerge from this crisis facing a tidal wave of medical malpractice lawsuits so that trial lawyers can line their pockets,” the Kentucky Republican said in the Senate on Tuesday. “This will give our doctors, nurses and other health care providers a lot more security as they clock in every day and risk themselves to care for strangers.”
A coalition of 36 physician and hospital associations has appealed as well to congressional leaders for federal legislation.
Some legal experts and seniors’ advocates worry that the state immunity guarantees go too far, leaving patients with no way to hold providers accountable. Supporters argue that health care providers and facilities deserve protection from lawsuits as they battle a deadly virus during an unprecedented public health emergency.
Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Wolf, a Democrat, joined the movement last week, acknowledging that the COVID-19 epidemic has “required our health care providers to broaden their professional responsibilities and experiences like never before.” Like other governors, Wolf included in his order exceptions for the most egregious lapses in care involving intentional misconduct or extreme negligence.
“When you are asking nurses to work around-the-clock and the ICU has 2½ times as many people than it was engineered for, well, my goodness, doesn’t this make common sense?” said Kenneth Raske, president and chief executive officer of the Greater New York Hospital Association, which represents more than 160 hospitals and health systems in New York, New Jersey, Connecticut and Rhode Island.
The group helped draft New York’s immunity measure, said Raske. Supporters also include the American Medical Association, which urged the National Governors Association to use the New York law as a model for other states.
“When you are asking nurses to work around-the-clock and the ICU has 2½ times as many people than it was engineered for, well, my goodness, doesn’t this make common sense?”
— Kenneth Raske, Greater New York Hospital Association
Immunity for providers during the COVID-19 emergency “is good for patients” because it encourages providers to work in extraordinarily tough conditions, said James Hodge, an Arizona State University law professor and regional director at the Network for Public Health Law.
It is an extension of the usual protection for a “good Samaritan”—the doctor or nurse who sees a car accident, for example, and stops to help the injured. The well-intentioned doctor doesn’t have the equipment and support of a hospital and shouldn’t be held to the same standards.
Similarly, some well-intentioned medical providers treating COVID-19 patients work with scarce supplies and overburdened staff and face other conditions often beyond their control.
Since some states offer no virus-related liability protection for long-term care providers—such as skilled nursing facilities, assisted living communities and continuing care retirement communities—during the current crisis, their trade associations are looking to the federal government instead.
“Long-term care workers and centers are on the front line of this pandemic response,” said Cristina Crawford, a spokesperson for the American Health Care Association, “and it is critical that states and the federal government provide the necessary liability protection.”
But Mairead Painter, director of Connecticut’s State Long Term Care Ombudsman Program, said the immunity guarantee could discourage nursing home residents and their families from filing complaints about abuse or neglect, or challenging their transfer to other homes as administrators try to separate residents who have the coronavirus from those without it.
“So they might sort of just let it fall to the wayside, and we don’t want them to do that,” she said.
As infection rates slowly decrease, providers should be expected to follow the usual standard of care, said Barry Furrow, director of Drexel University law school’s health law program in Philadelphia, who has studied hospital corporate negligence.
“These immunity statutes do too much, because now we’re settling back to a more normalized health care situation where we have a new disease vector, which we’re beginning to understand,” he said.
The immunity guarantee covers the duration of the COVID-19 emergency, which could continue for several more months, if not longer, Furrow said, so states are letting providers “off the hook.”
Despite the state immunity guarantees, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services ordered state health inspectors to crack down on nursing homes that don’t follow infection-control requirements, and, starting May 8, required facilities to inform residents or their families by 5 p.m. the day after a new case of COVID-19 is confirmed. And officials in some parts of the country have begun criminal investigations of nursing homes suspected of endangering residents.
“This sends a message to the nursing home inspectors to step back. This is an insidious quieting of accountability just when it is needed the most.”
— Richard Mollot, Long Term Care Community Coalition in New York City
The mixed messages are most evident in New York, the coronavirus epicenter in the U.S., which has one of the nation’s most comprehensive COVID-19 shields against medical liability. It protects individual medical professionals as well as health care facilities from both civil and criminal lawsuits involving any patients, regardless of whether they had the virus. There’s an exception for egregious conduct, which Furrow said is a high bar and up to a jury to define.
“This sends a message to the nursing home inspectors to step back,” said Richard Mollot, executive director of the Long Term Care Community Coalition in New York City. “This is an insidious quieting of accountability just when it is needed the most.”
But Dani Lever, a spokesperson for Gov. Andrew Cuomo, said the immunity law “imposes no limitations on the ability of the state to investigate nursing homes.”
About 20 percent of the 27,450 confirmed and presumed coronavirus deaths in the state by Wednesday have occurred in nursing homes, prompting an investigation by Cuomo and Attorney General Letitia James. When Cuomo described the investigation, he was both sympathetic and critical of nursing homes.
“This is a crisis situation for nursing homes… through no fault of their own,” he said. “Mother Nature brought a virus and the virus attacks old people.” Nonetheless, he added, they must “do their job by the rules and regulations.”
Kaiser Health News (KHN) is a nonprofit news service covering health issues. It is an editorially independent program of the Kaiser Family Foundation that is not affiliated with Kaiser Permanente.
Many counties in Georgia may not have enough hospital beds to treat a new wave of COVID-19 patients. Photo from a barbershop in Atlanta, Georgia, Monday, April 27, 2020.
Dustin Chambers/Bloomberg via Getty Images
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Dustin Chambers/Bloomberg via Getty Images
Many counties in Georgia may not have enough hospital beds to treat a new wave of COVID-19 patients. Photo from a barbershop in Atlanta, Georgia, Monday, April 27, 2020.
Dustin Chambers/Bloomberg via Getty Images
Georgia — one of the first states to reopen its economy — may not have enough hospital beds to treat a new wave of critically ill patients infected with the coronavirus, according to internal federal government documents obtained by the Center for Public Integrity.
A slide prepared by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services for an interagency briefing last week said Georgia’s intensive care unit beds were 79% full on May 6, based on data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
“Data suggest that Georgia may have limited healthcare capacity margin to respond to a future surge in critically ill patients,” reads the slide, which is marked “NOT FOR DISTRIBUTION.”
The warning for Georgia comes even as the White House and federal agencies shift their focus to helping states restart their economies. The federal government also wants states to assume more responsibility for pandemic response. The Federal Emergency Management Agency, for one, is planning a “right-sizing” of its operations after Memorial Day, and HHS is making plans to “transition back to a regionally managed public health emergency” approach, said officials on a recording of a meeting from last week obtained by Public Integrity.
Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp, a Republican, allowed gyms, bowling alleys, hair salons and some other businesses to reopen April 24. He lifted all other restrictions at the end of April, while advising elderly and sick people to stay home.
“What we’ve done has worked,” Kemp told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. “It’s given us time to build our hospital infrastructure capacity, get ventilators and ramp up testing. That’s what really drove our decision.”
Kemp has also cited concerns about Georgia’s economy, one of the hardest hit by job losses, when defending his reopening plan.
Kemp’s spokesperson, Cody Hall, told Public Integrity he would not comment on how the state would handle any future coronavirus surge. Hall points to the state’s data on hospital bed capacity, which is slightly rosier than the federal outlook. The state also set up a 200-bed temporary hospital in an Atlanta convention center and with the help of FEMA dispatched four mobile units of about 22 beds each to different corners of the state.
If Georgia’s decision to reopen early backfires, certain residents may shoulder the bulk of the consequences — not only the elderly, who are at higher risk of complications from the virus, but also African Americans.
A CDC study released last week showed a disproportionate number of Georgians hospitalized with COVID-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus, are African American. And while African Americans make up about 30% of Georgia’s population, they account for half of reported COVID-19 deaths.
Georgia Tech professor Pinar Keskinocak said she is not surprised by the HHS assessment that the state may run out of ICU beds.
“That’s very much in line with our predictions as well,” said Keskinocak, who leads a team modeling several potential scenarios for the future of the coronavirus in Georgia. “In most of those scenarios we found that there would be shortages.”
Keskinocak’s modeling team at Georgia Tech determined that hospitals in the state would run out of beds for COVID-19 patients before mid-August in all but two of the 14 local hospital regions — even if 60% of Georgians did a good job at staying at home when they or their household members felt sick. The Georgia Tech group has shared its projections with the state’s Department of Public Health.
“I can tell you they are listening very carefully. But what happens beyond that I cannot tell,” Keskinocak said. “The input they get from modelers is one input. How they trade off many of those things and make a decision, I don’t know.”
Stephen Daugherty, CEO of Coliseum Medical Centers in Macon, Georgia, said he’s not at this time worried about a surge in coronavirus cases but that Georgians should consider social distancing “important” until there is a vaccine or “a sufficient number are determined to be immune through herd immunity.”
Hospitals across the country have used the last few months of social distancing to add beds, acquire ventilators and otherwise prepare for a potential surge in COVID-19 patients. But the CDC data shows that in Georgia, the District of Columbia and five other states — Alabama, Colorado, Maryland, Rhode Island and Washington — more than 70% of ICU beds were in use as of May 12.
The White House listed “ability to surge ICU capacity” as one of the key requirements for states in its reopening plan released in April. Experts have also said hospitals must be ready to handle a sudden onslaught of patients.
“The capacity to cope with a surge in cases, and to detect it promptly, are the minimal requirements as states calibrate reopening,” said William Hanage, a Harvard epidemiologist, in an email.
The White House did not respond to a request for comment. An HHS spokesperson who refused to be named said the coronavirus response is “federally-supported, but led by the local authorities” and will continue to be. FEMA did not directly answer questions about winding down its operations, but a spokesperson who refused to be named said it would continue leading the coronavirus response until directed otherwise by President Trump.
The CDC did not answer a question about whether it had warned Georgia about the potential shortage of hospital beds.
The CDC is offering local officials “technical assistance, tools, and resources that are specific to the circumstances and needs in their communities,” CDC spokesperson Kristen Nordlund said in an email. “States are empowered to make decisions about opening up and any questions about their decisions and capacity should be directed at them.”
The Georgia Department of Public Health did not answer a question about whether the state’s ICU bed capacity was sufficient.
Data published by the state was slightly more optimistic about hospitals’ bed capacity there. The same day the federal briefing said that 79% of Georgia ICU beds were full according to CDC data, the state reported it at 73%. As of Tuesday the CDC reported 71% of Georgia ICU beds were full; Georgia said 66% as of Monday. According to Georgia’s data, portion of Georgia critical care beds that are full has hovered around 70% since April 14, the oldest date for which the state has reported the numbers.
The CDC data is based on a nationwide survey of hospitals and does not include every institution; the Georgia data is self-reported by hospitals, said Georgia Department of Public Health spokesperson Nancy Nydam, who offered no further details.
Georgia as a whole is seeing a slight decrease in its average daily coronavirus cases since late April — from 741 in the week ending April 26 to 702 the week ending May 10. But in Atlanta and surrounding counties — where there are the most confirmed cases — ICU beds are already mostly full.
ICU beds in the 12-county hospital region just south of Atlanta were nearly 89% full on May 11, state data shows. Most of the other regions bordering Atlanta were over 70% full.
In the region home to Atlanta and the CDC’s headquarters, nearly two in every three critical care beds were occupied.
But other places in Georgia have more wiggle room. Hospitals in southeast Georgia still had more than half of their ICU beds available May 11. The state had witnessed more than 34,000 total confirmed COVID-19 cases and more than 1,400 deaths as of Tuesday, May 12.
Explosions and gunfire have been heard from inside a hospital in western Kabul operated by Doctors Without Borders (MSF), local media reported. Medical staff are said to be trapped inside as the battle rages on.
The hospital is located in the Dasht-e-Barchi area of the Afghan capital. At least two powerful explosions have been heard at the scene, TOLO News reported.
گزارشهای نخستین میرسانند که افراد مسلح بر یک شفاخانه در منطقه دشت برچی از مربوطات حوزه سیزدهم امنیتی کابل حمله کردهاند. pic.twitter.com/NjNPMVqcyV
— TOLOnews (@TOLOnews) May 12, 2020
The Afghan Interior Ministry said a special police unit has arrived at the scene.
Some reports claim that at least one of the reported explosions happened when a suicide bomber entered the hospital premises, launching the attack.
Sounds of couple of explosions heard in Dashte Barchi area of Kabul this morning around 10:00 am, Sources. A suicide bomber has also entered into a hospital of Doctors Sans Frontier in the Thanke-thail area of Dashte Barchi % has started back to back firing.#Sayhoonpic.twitter.com/UxlzbHUn1v
— SAYHOON NEWS (@NewsSayhoon) May 12, 2020
According to a Reuters source in the Interior Ministry, the attack happened when the hospital was supposed to be visited by a deputy health minister.
Neither the identity of the gunmen nor a casualty report was immediately available. But witnesses say at least three injured civilians, including a woman, have been evacuated from the scene.
د کابل لویدځه څنډه کې پر یوه روغتون وسله وال برید شوی دید سیمې خلک وایي لومړی د روغتون دروازې مخې ته ځانمرګی برید شوی او وروسته وسله وال ور دننه شوي دي. pic.twitter.com/DCAoBfiFXn
— 1TVNewsAF (@1TVNewsAF) May 12, 2020
The attackers are reportedly trying to get inside a guest house on the hospital compound where foreigner personnel are staying.
MSF has been supporting the Dasht-e-Barchi hospital which provides maternal care. The organization says it’s the only place in the neighborhood, with a population of over one million, capable of dealing with emergency and complicated deliveries.
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https://sputniknews.com/asia/202005121079277591-explosion-happens-at-entrance-to-kabul-hospital-militants-enter-building—reports/
MOSCOW (Sputnik) – An explosion occurred at the entrance to a hospital in the Afghan capital of Kabul, and militants then entered the building, 1TV broadcaster reported on Tuesday, citing a doctor working at the hospital.
This was a suicide bombing, 1TV specified. Only some staffers have managed to leave the hospital.
A gun fight is ongoing in the building, with militants using hand grenades, 1TV added, citing a security source.
Above photo: Getty Images.
St. Paul, MN – During the course of my May 8, 2020, shift, I was brought into two meetings with managers of United Hospital’s Emergency Room and two representatives from its Human Relations department. By the end of the second meeting, I was informed that I was terminated from employment for the following reason, as stated by United Hospital:
“Cliff’s conduct on April 24, 2020 violated the Hospital policies and expectations, including the Respectful Workplace policy and the Code of Conduct. Cliff’s conduct on May 8, 2020 violated Hospital policy and expectations regarding uniforms and hospital scrubs, as well as his duty to follow the directions of his leader. Each incident constitutes an independent ground warranting termination of employment. As such, Cliff’s employment is being terminated effective immediately”.
Moving beyond the talking points of Allina Health, let me provide some context. For months, working conditions, patient safety, public health, and the rights of union members have been degraded and placed at risk by Allina hospital administration’s policies, behavior, and egregious lack of preparation for a global pandemic. This is not a matter of opinion or perspective but documented fact, evidenced by hundreds of OSHA complaints, failing infection protocols, communications of frontline healthcare workers, and hospital administration’s ongoing acts of intimidation, harassment, and threats to our professional standing.
Hospital administrators placed profits and executive compensation over protection of employees, year after year. The resulting failure and disorganization have pushed workplace safety, nursing practice, public health, and our rights as workers to a breaking point.
Frontline workers in disparate industries, workplaces, and healthcare settings are not tolerating these developments, and United Hospital is no exception. On a national scale, we rank and file workers are beginning to stand up for ourselves and reject the catastrophic role of management and the executive class. As we reject the decisions and power of our superiors in this life-and-death scenario, we are being harassed and punished to remind us both who is in command and what actions they are willing to take to subject us to that command, no matter how costly or dangerous to us or to the public.
I reported workplace safety concerns to United Hospital because I believed the hospital was violating the law and our union contract. I reported my concerns on behalf of myself, my family, my coworkers, and the community. When I was harassed and retaliated against for reporting these concerns, I was fired. Workers throughout the hospital are experiencing the same type of daily managerial harassment, threats, and abuse that I did. It’s a paradigm that sets power against morality and the fundamental rights of frontline workers and the public we serve.
I am a union steward. This means that I am a frontline RN with the additional role of defending our union contract and the principles and practices it articulates. I do not get paid for being a steward, yet it’s a role that I have played in three unions and two industries in my lifetime. Among my responsibilities as a steward is looking out for the health care safety of my coworkers and patients. For the last two months, I have carried out that role by advocating for protective measures designed for the safety of both patients and public. I have called attention to specific and general policies and practices that risk the lives of many. I have sent ongoing communications and concerns to management. I have filed complaints with OSHA, which is currently in the process of an investigation of United Hospital. I have reached out to United’s Emergency Room (ER) Manager and Director as well as the hospital’s Chief Nursing Officer (CNO), President Sarah Criger, and Allina CEO Penny Wheeler to reporting unsafe work and nursing practice, and a state of ongoing intimidation of staff. I’ve been met with silence, misdirection, or outright hostility.
The more forceful my advocacy for patient and workplace safety, the more aggressive hospital management has become with me. They have called me unannounced at my home and lied about the potential for disciplinary action against me. They have shadowed me and my coworkers as we perform patient care in working conditions that are nothing short of life-threatening. They have confronted me on the ER floor and told me that I could not “conduct union activity” when I am speaking with my coworkers about union rights. They have persecuted me for basic infection prevention measures and punished me with discipline for pointing out ongoing workplace harassment conducted by hospital management. They have made credible threats to my career, which is what my family relies on for basic income and for access to the medical care that we need. On Friday, May 8, 2020, they made good on those threats and fired me from my position at United Hospital ER.
Allina has issued a response to my firing that accurately states, “Allina’s employees are the foundation of our organization. Without them we would not be able to serve the health care needs of our communities.” But it purposely misrepresents my termination by writing that I was, “…violating(ing) hospital policies designed to protect our patients and staff.” Nothing could be further from the truth at this late stage of a global crisis exacerbated by corporate disorganization and mismanagement. This level of arrogance and casual disregard for the experience of frontline workers and the public we serve is something I have never experienced in over 35 years in the US workforce. Allina is not taking all available actions to protect frontline workers, patients, and the community.
For these and additional reasons, I have continued to organize with frontline workers in United Hospital and the greater public. I am being represented by my personal attorney, Amanda Cefalu, and the Minnesota Nurses Association. I have filed grievances about my treatment with Allina Health and will be filing additional charges of Unfair Labor Practices for myself and my coworkers. I was notified and have made administrators at United Hospital aware that my case has been referred to the discrimination unit of the Minnesota Department of Labor and Industry.
As I have suggested, this is bigger than scrubs.
I would like to close by restating unequivocally my loyalty to my coworkers, to the people we serve, and to the working class people that are the fundamental force of all humanity. Our task, contrary to the corporate coercion so desperate to keep us in a state of subjugation, is to organize, envision, and struggle, and to craft our own power during this moment of global crisis. If we do it correctly, we have the potential to build healthcare that is powered by people and that opens more doors and potential than this statement has time to address. This goal will inform our actions and intentions from this point on.
Manmohan Singh, the former prime minister of India, is getting medical care after suffering from chest pains and uneasiness, media reports say.
Singh, 87, was taken to All India Institute Of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) in New Delhi on Sunday and was under observation in the cardio-thoracic ward where he was being treated by a cardiologist. He is currently not in critical condition and away from the intensive care unit (ICU) of the hospital in a private room.
Singh served as the 13th prime minister of India from 2004 to 2014, and he currently serves in the Upper House of Parliament.
The former prime minister underwent a heart-bypass surgery in 2009 at AIIMS.
There is so far no indication if Singh is suffering from the coronavirus, though India has been one of nations hit hard by the outbreak. Medical experts have suggested advanced age and pre-existing conditions affecting the immune system can make a virus such as Covid-19 far more deadly.
India has counted over 2,000 deaths from the pandemic and over 60,000 confirmed cases. It went into a national lockdown at the end of March, which has been in the process of being lifted through phases in the last few weeks.
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A blaze broke out at a major Moscow hospital that has been treating coronavirus patients. At least one person has died, while dozens of others had to be evacuated.
The fire broke out at Moscow’s Hospital No.50 late on Saturday. Footage from the scene shows a massive plume of gray smoke billowing from the building.
Mask-wearing police have been preventing anyone but emergency services from entering the area.
The hospital is said to have some 800 beds specifically for coronavirus-infected people. The fire prompted the evacuation of some 295 people from the hospital, both patients and medical workers.
According to media reports, the blaze broke out at an intensive care unit after a leaky oxygen canister caught fire. Five patients were evacuated from the ICU, but a sixth died.
На севере Москвы горит больница. Сейчас медики эвакуируют пациентов в соседнее здание. Площадь пожара пока не ясна. На месте работают экстренные службы pic.twitter.com/9HsGCYT3bs
— lifenews_ru (@lifenews_ru) May 9, 2020
While the fire was promptly extinguished, there is still a large firefighter presence at the scene. The fire-damaged block of the hospital remains cordoned off.
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Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, seen in February, has been released from the hospital after treatment for a gallbladder condition.
Patrick Semansky/AP
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Patrick Semansky/AP
Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, seen in February, has been released from the hospital after treatment for a gallbladder condition.
Patrick Semansky/AP
After being treated on Tuesday for a gallbladder infection at Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore, Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg was discharged on Wednesday.
“She is doing well and glad to be home,” according to a Supreme Court press release.
The court said over the next few weeks Ginsburg will return to Johns Hopkins Hospital for follow-up outpatient visits, and for a nonsurgical procedure to remove the gallstone.
Ginsburg, 87, participated in a virtual Supreme Court hearing on Wednesday from her hospital room. The justices and lawyers held unique oral argument sessions by phone all week because of the coronavirus pandemic.
Last year Ginsburg underwent three weeks of radiation for a cancerous tumor on her pancreas, and in December she was operated on for lung cancer.
Above photo: Rise and Resist protesting outside the Samaritan’s Purse hospital tents in Central Park. Donna Aceto
When it opened in March, the field hospital set up at Central Park was meant to increase hospital beds during the coronavirus crisis. More than 300 patients were treated at the temporary facility. Now, some are happy to see it go.
“Samaritan’s Purse will be gone from New York within two weeks,” said Natalie James, the co-founder of the Reclaim Pride Coalition. “We are very relieved and consider this to be a victory of the LGBT community and other oppressed groups.”
LGBTQ advocates rallied on Sunday against the organization that helped set up the facility. The tent hospital is a collaborative effort between Mount Sinai Hospital and Samaritan’s Purse, an organization founded by preacher Franklin Graham. The religious figure has expressed anti-gay and anti-Muslim views. Critics also accused the group of exploiting patients who were filmed at the facility. The footage was later used in fundraising videos.
On Sunday, the Reclaim Pride Coalition held a rally outside of the Hospital’s Beth Israel location, which was also getting assistance from Samaritan’s Purse.
“We want New Yorkers to know that they have been sold down the river by their officials and leaders who have not cared about them in bringing bigotry into the city,” said Ann Northrop, a member of the coalition.
Despite multiple requests from police to disperse, the group decided to hold their press conference and rally outside of Mount Sinai Hospital.
Officers did issue some citations to people present because they were in violation of the state and city bans on organized events and large gatherings during the coronavirus crisis.
“They’re trying to shut down this message to New York City that the mayor and the governor and mount Sinai hospital have brought a huge, dangerous bigot into our midst,” said Northrop.
Mayor De Blasio previously said he would monitor the group’s operations. But perhaps the sharpest criticism from a city leader, from Council Speaker Corey Johnson who tweeted: “It is time for Samaritan’s Purse to leave New York City. This group, which is led by the notoriously bigoted, hate-spewing Franklin Graham, came at a time when our city couldn’t in good conscience turn away any offer of help. That time has passed.”
While it’s not clear if the backlash caused the closure, Samaritan’s Purse and Mount Sinai issued a joint statement, saying they will stop admitting new patients to the tent hospital in Central Park. The organization would also wind down its support of Mount Sinai Beth Israel Hospital over the next two weeks.