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  Which Is Anti-Immigrant, Arizona or California? David C. Stolinsky Feb. 13, 2012 If you relied on the mainstream media, you would conclude that Arizona is anti-immigrant, while California is pro-immigrant. You would conclude that Republican Arizona Governor Jan Brewer must hate immigrants. After all, she signed SB-1070, which requires police to refer illegal immigrants to Immigration if they are arrested for other crimes. The law was passed after illegals committed a series of crimes, culminating in the murder of well-known rancher Robert Krentz, a man who went out of his way to help others. But Democratic California Governor...

| Feb 02, 2012 | Terry Jeffrey Posted on 02/02/2012 7:05:30 AM PST by Dr. Brian Kopp Romney Told Catholic Hospitals to Administer Abortion PillsTerry Jeffrey TownHallFeb 02, 2012A defining moment in Mitt Romney's post-pro-life-conversion political career came in his third year as governor of Massachusetts, when he decided Catholic hospitals would be required under his interpretation of a new state law to give rape victims a drug that can induce abortions. Romney announced this decision -- saying it was the "right thing for hospitals" to do -- just two days after he had taken the opposite position. The story...

January 30, 2012 Losing the Catholic Vote? By Carol Platt Liebau 1/30/2012 The Obama administration has picked a fight that is downright wrong -- and may have real political implications for the President's reelection. The Department of Health and Human Services has issued an edict that, under ObamaCare, effectively all employers will be FORCED to offer health insurance that covers subsidized contraception, sterilization and abortion-inducing drugs. This means that Catholic employers (like hospitals and universities) and other Christian entities would be forced to contravene their own teachings in order to provide their employees with health insurance. The Catholic Church is...

Fuentes has spent 374 days at Community Regional Medical Center, the longest uninterrupted stay by a patient at the Fresno acute-care hospital, according to staff recollection. Doctors suspect Fuentes, 35, had gallstones that developed into a gallbladder infection, which was left untreated and progressed. The average length of hospital stay for uncomplicated pancreatitis is about two weeks, with a complicated case taking as many as 45 to 65 days, according to the Society for Surgery of the Alimentary Tract. But Fuentes' case was far from uncomplicated. Fuentes had 12 surgeries overseen by three trauma physicians -- Drs. Jim Davis, Ricard...

Hundreds of patients have been languishing for months or even years in New York City hospitals, despite being well enough to be sent home or to nursing centers for less-expensive care, because they are illegal immigrants or lack sufficient insurance or appropriate housing. As a result, hospitals are absorbing the bill for millions of dollars in unreimbursed expenses annually while the patients, trapped in bureaucratic limbo, are sometimes deprived of services that could be provided elsewhere at a small fraction of the cost. “Many of those individuals no longer need that care, but because they have no resources and many...

CHICAGO/NEW YORK (Reuters) - On a recent shift at a Chicago emergency department, Dr. William Sullivan treated a newly homeless patient who was threatening to kill himself. "He had been homeless for about two weeks. He hadn't showered or eaten a lot. He asked if we had a meal tray," said Sullivan, a physician at the University of Illinois Medical Center at Chicago and a past president of the Illinois College of Emergency Physicians. Sullivan said the man kept repeating that he wanted to kill himself. "It seemed almost as if he was interested in being admitted." Across the country,...

Pregnant mothers are advised to remain calm at all times, but Elli Zachariadou could not hide her shock a few weeks ago when she heard reports about women having to pay at least €900 up front in order to give birth at public hospitals. Even more shocking to Zachariadou and other Greeks was the news that a number of hospitals had turned away pregnant women because they did not have the necessary cash. “My immediate thought on hearing about the hospital charges was, how am I going to have this baby?” Zachariadou said. “You know, €900 is about three months’...

James Breedin cannot keep track of how often he has been admitted to Howard University Hospital in Washington, D.C., for heart problems. "It's been so many," said Breedin, a 75-year-old disabled truck driver. One reason for his frequent returns, he says, is that he often can't afford the medications his doctor prescribes to keep his heart problems in check, "so I have to do without." And though his doctors recommend regular physical activity -- a lifestyle change that could also cut the chances he will find himself in the hospital again -- he said he fears exercising outside because of...

A Queen’s University infectious disease expert has collaborated in the development of a disinfection system that may change the way hospital rooms all over the world are cleaned as well as stop bed bug outbreaks in hotels and apartments. > The new technology involves pumping a Medizone-specific ozone and hydrogen peroxide vapour gas mixture into a room to completely sterilize everything – including floors, walls, drapes, mattresses, chairs and other surfaces. It is far more effective in killing bacteria than wiping down a room. Dr. Zoutman says the technique is similar to what we now know Mother Nature uses to...

Patient care is under threat at more than 60 NHS hospitals which are “on the brink of financial collapse” because of costly private finance initiative schemes, the Health Secretary will warn. Andrew Lansley says he has been contacted by 22 health service trusts which claim their “clinical and financial stability” is being undermined by the costs of the contracts, which the Labour government used extensively to fund public sector projects. The Daily Telegraph can disclose that the trusts in jeopardy include Barts and the London, Oxford Radcliffe, North Bristol, St Helens and Knowsley, and Portsmouth. Between them the trusts run...

Just as students head back to college and families finish summer vacations comes the latest bad news from pest control companies: Bedbug infestations are getting worse and becoming more common in some places, including dorms, hotels, nursing homes, hospitals, office buildings, and schools and day-care centers. According to a survey released Wednesday by the National Pest Management Association and the University of Kentucky, pest control companies say there has been double-digit growth in infestations in the past year. About 54 percent of pest companies reported treating bedbugs in college dorms, compared with 35 percent in 2010; 80 percent reported treating...

Hospitals in Massachusetts will reap an annual windfall of $275 million due to a loophole enshrined in the new health care law. Hospitals in most other states will get less money as a result. The disclosure was buried in a regulation that Medicare issued late last week. Hospital association executives in other states are up in arms over the news, which comes at a time when they are girding for more cuts under the newly signed federal debt deal. "If I could think of a better word than outrageous, I would come up with it," said Steve Brenton, president of...

WASHINGTON (AP) — Hospitals in Massachusetts will reap an annual windfall of $275 million through a loophole enshrined in the new health care law. Hospitals in most other states will get less money as a result. Hospital association executives in other states are up in arms over the news, buried in a Medicare regulation issued Monday. It comes at a time when hospitals face more cuts under the newly signed federal debt deal. "If I could think of a better word than outrageous, I would come up with it," said Steve Brenton, president of the Wisconsin Hospital Association. Even Medicare...

The death toll at a hospital where medical supplies were deliberately sabotaged could rise still further, police said last night, after they began investigating the deaths of two more patients. Detectives launched a murder inquiry last week after three people being treated at the Stepping Hill hospital in Stockport died when batch of saline solution was contaminated with insulin Rebecca Leighton, 27, a nurse at the hospital was still being questioned last night after being arrested on suspicion of murder. She was arrested on Wednesday morning at her flat just a mile from the hospital where she was employed as...

In a long-sought move, the University of Miami won a legislative victory on Wednesday when Florida lawmakers agreed to extend state lawsuit protection to university doctors working in public hospitals. Gov. Rick Scott will likely sign the bill into law. Scott is also expected to sign another lawsuit-limitation bill that passed Wednesday that changes the way people can sue automobile makers. The vote to give “sovereign immunity” to UM has been years in the making. The state protects government hospital employees, residents and interns — including those at Miami’s Jackson Health System — from major medical malpractice judgments. But UM...

The joke that's going around is that the Mayans got it wrong: The world is ending this year, not 2012. Here's the lates sign of that. A superbug is spreading around America, and has hit Southern California. LA Times: A dangerous drug-resistant bacterium has spread to patients in Southern California, according to a study by Los Angeles County public health officials. More than 350 cases of the Carbapenem-Resistant Klebsiella pneumoniae, or CRKP, have been reported at healthcare facilities in Los Angeles County, mostly among elderly patients at skilled-nursing and long-term care facilities, according to a study by Dr. Dawn Terashita,...

HOSPITALS are being forced to spend hundreds of thousands of pounds on super-strong beds for patients weighing up to 72 stone. NHS trusts across the country have spent five-figure sums on hiring or buying reinforced beds. The City Hospitals Sunderland NHS Trust spent £34,780 on five beds, and rents another four. It has also had to provide trolleys, chairs and toilets capable of holding very obese patients and make doorways bigger. North Cumbria University Hospitals NHS Trust has spent £38,000 on the specialist beds, County Durham and Darlington £21,761, Newcastle £10,172 and South Tees £17,158. Officials at South Tees Hospitals...

Monday will be the one-year anniversary of the House passage of ObamaCare. To mark this occasion, IBD is going look at some new problems that have already developed due to this law. But first we’ll examine how ObamaCare fails to address chronic hospital inefficiency. “Hospitals have not adopted the practices that have led to productivity gains in other industries,” said Rich Garnick, CEO of Anthelio, which works with hospitals to improve efficiency. Garnick says hospitals lack “a seamless approach for tracking information.”

It is a strange thing when those who would pay them support higher taxes. Yet that is what we are seeing around the country as states wrestle with how to shoehorn the burgeoning cost of Medicaid into their budgets. Health care providers, led by hospitals and nursing home operators, are stepping forward to support taxes on their revenues. They are hoping states will take the tax money, use it to get Medicaid matching funds from the federal government, then leave health care out of the fray when cutting state budgets. To some, this may rightly sound like a form of...

Arizona lawmakers are trying to widen the state's illegal immigration crackdown with a proposal to require hospitals to confirm whether patients are in the country legally. The National Conference of State Legislatures says it knows of no other states considering similar bills. The proposal being heard late Monday by the Arizona Senate's judiciary committee would require hospitals to contact immigration authorities if a patient is an illegal immigrant.

GALVESTON — The crushing news came last month as Maria Sanchez was being prepared for surgery to remove a banana-size tumor along her spine that had crept between her vertebrae. Unable to use her right hand because of the growing tumor, Sanchez, 24, had been at the University of Texas Medical Branch's John Sealy Hospital for six days when, she said, a Spanish-speaking doctor told her she had to leave the hospital immediately because she was an illegal immigrant. The doctor said she should have surgery in Mexico, according to Sanchez. Sanchez's hospital records state that she was discharged because...

Top Hospitals Across United States Ranked Based on Patient Mortality Emma Hitt, PhD processing....   January 26, 2010 — A first-ever ranking of the nation's top 50 hospitals based on a comprehensive study of patient death and complication rates at nearly 5000 hospitals has been released this week.The study was conducted by HealthGrades as part of the ninth annual HealthGrades Hospital Quality and Clinical Excellence study. The analysis was based on approximately 40 million Medicare patient discharges for the years 2007, 2008, and 2009.The study, led by Kristin Reed, MPH, Carol Nicholas, MSTC, and Rick May, MD, with the...

Repeal of ObamaCare can't come soon enough -- as several damaging provisions are set to take effect this year. For starters, it has effectively stopped the construction of physician-owned hospitals throughout the country. Section 6001 of the health-care law required physician-owned hospitals to obtain their Medicare certification by the end of last year. Without it, they can't treat Medicare patients. And the facilities needed to be open to get that certification. So construction halted at 45 hospitals as the New Year arrived. Work on countless others will never start, having been effectively banned by ObamaCare. This will limit competition in...

a superlative idea! Let's throw thousands of construction workers out of work and make it harder to access quality medical care at the same time. Man, those Democrats are 6 times brilliant, eh? The Weekly Standard: Under the headline, "Construction Stops at Physician Hospitals," Politico reports today that "Physician Hospitals of America says that construction had to stop at 45 hospitals nationwide or they would not be able to bill Medicare for treatments." Stopping construction at doctor-owned hospitals might not seem like the best way to boost the economy or to promote greater access and choice in health care, but...

January 04, 2011 Obamacare stops construction at 45 physician owned hospitals nationwideRick Moran What a superlative idea! Let's throw thousands of construction workers out of work and make it harder to access quality medical care at the same time. Man, those Democrats are 6 times brilliant, eh? The Weekly Standard: Under the headline, "Construction Stops at Physician Hospitals," Politico reports today that "Physician Hospitals of America says that construction had to stop at 45 hospitals nationwide or they would not be able to bill Medicare for treatments." Stopping construction at doctor-owned hospitals might not seem like the best way to...

Physician Hospitals of America says that construction had to stop at 45 hospitals nationwide or they would not be able to bill Medicare for treatments." Stopping construction at doctor-owned hospitals might not seem like the best way to boost the economy or to promote greater access and choice in health care, but that exactly what Obamacare is doing. "Section 6001 of the health care law effectively bans new physician-owned hospitals (POHs) from starting up, and it keeps existing ones from expanding." American Hospital Association ... the AHA, along with Sen. [Max] Baucus (D-MT) and Congressman Pete Stark (D-CA), are responsible...

Feds asked to ensure Catholic hospitals follow lawThe American Civil Liberties Union on Wednesday asked federal health officials to ensure that Catholic hospitals provide emergency reproductive care to pregnant women. By Rob Stein The Washington Post Originally published Wednesday, December 22, 2010 at 10:00 PM The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) on Wednesday asked federal health officials to ensure that Catholic hospitals provide emergency reproductive care to pregnant women, saying the refusal by religiously affiliated hospitals to provide abortion and other services is an increasing problem. In a letter to the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), the ACLU...

Interesting piece on managing wait-times in Canada: On Monday, Auditor General Jim McCarter released his annual report which found that despite putting an extra $200 million into shortening emergency room wait times over the last two years, "significant province-wide progress has not yet been made." "Complaints about overcrowding and delays in hospital emergency rooms have persisted for years," McCarter told a news conference on Monday. Emergency room waits for people with serious conditions sometimes reached 12 hours or more, the report said. That is far greater than the province's 8-hour wait time target, the report found. And for emergency patients...

Which do you think is less expensive, not to mention preferable: a cure for cancer, Alzheimer's disease and diabetes, or caring for people with these diseases? Wouldn't it be better medical and public policy to direct more resources toward finding a cure for diseases that cost a lot to treat than to rely on a government insurance program, such as Obamacare, which seeks mainly to help pay the bills for people after they become ill? Isn't the answer obvious? Apparently not to many politicians trapped in an old paradigm that focuses too much on hospitals, doctors and medicines and too...

Senior IDF officials were among those at a conference on humanitarian medicine held this week in Hadassah Medical Center in Jerusalem. IDF commanders and soldiers were there to hear about recent developments and challenges in the IDF. Brigadier-General Nitzan Alon, Commander of the Judea and Samaria Division, said Israel had faced a unique humanitarian challenge in recent years. When a terror war broke out in 2000 and PA terrorists began attacking Israel more frequently than ever, Israel was forced to limit PA Arabs' access to Israeli cities, he said, leading to a situation in which PA Arabs were no longer...

Adverse Events in Hospitals: National Incidence Among Medicare Beneficiaries {Excerpted] OBJECTIVES To estimate the national incidence of adverse events for hospitalized Medicare beneficiaries, assess the preventability of such events, and estimate associated costs to Medicare. Findings: An estimated 13.5 percent of hospitalized Medicare beneficiaries experienced adverse events during their hospital stays. An additional 13.5 percent of Medicare beneficiaries experienced events during their hospital stays that resulted in temporary harm. Physician reviewers determined that 44 percent of adverse and temporary harm events were clearly or likely preventable. Hospital care associated with adverse events and temporary harm events cost Medicare an estimated...

The inquiry, announced by Health Secretary Andrew Lansley in June, aims to build on the work of an earlier independent investigation into the care provided by Mid Staffordshire NHS Foundation Trust between 2005 and 2009. [Snip] That inquiry [Snip] identified systemic failings at the hospital, where managers were preoccupied with cost-cutting and Government targets. [Snip] Appalling standards put patients at risk and between 400 and 1,200 more people died than would have been expected in a three-year period [Snip] the new inquiry would be held in public in order to combat "a culture of secrecy" and restore public confidence.

Hospitals are putting more patients into observation status for longer than 48 hours instead admitting them, in part out of fear of what happened at one hospital this month, the American Hospital Association says. Observation status is a Medicare billing category for patients not sick enough to qualify for acute admission but too sick to be sent home. Fear of Recovery Audit Contractor audits, or "post-payment reviews of inpatient claims" has been partly responsible, said Rick Pollack, AHA executive vice president, in a letter to Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services chief operating officer Marilyn Tavenner on Wednesday. "A related...

Hand surgeon Frederic Liss sees the new doctor-owned hospital that he and 24 fellow physicians are about to open in Royersford as just what the country's troubled health-care system needs, even though the recent health-reform law takes a decidedly different view. The 12-bed, five-operating-room, multispecialty surgical hospital will compete with two nearby for-profit hospitals, and that, Liss said, will drive innovation and give patients more choices. He said there was evidence patients prefer physician-owned hospitals and have been less likely to pick up infections there. [...] Foes of physician-owned hospitals dominated during the health-reform debate and won new rules that...

Dr. Victor Grigoriev had good news for Georganne Mumm's worried family when he emerged from the operating room. The surgery was a success, Mumm says he told her family. He had removed her cancerous kidney and her outlook was good. Mumm said her family embraced Grigoriev, a University of Nevada School of Medicine professor and a leader in the Las Vegas medical community. But that wasn't the complete story of what had happened in a MountainView Hospital operating room on Sept. 4, 2007, records show. Grigoriev mistook part of the 53-year-old's pancreas for a cancerous mass and cut it out,...

Thirty-five weeks pregnant, Robin Rodgers was vomiting and losing weight, so her doctor hospitalized her and ordered that she be fed through a tube until the birth of her daughter. But in a mistake that stemmed from years of lax federal oversight of medical devices, the hospital mixed up the tubes. Instead of snaking a tube through Ms. Rodgers’s nose and into her stomach, the nurse instead coupled the liquid-food bag to a tube that entered a vein. “And she said, ‘Oh, Mom, she’s dead.’ And I said, ‘I know, but now we have to take care of you,’ ”...

WHEELING - The issue of Medicaid and Medicare reimbursement could become a weighty issue with employees at Ohio Valley Medical Center and East Ohio Regional Hospital. The employees were informed by letter this week of a proposal currently before the Health Care Reform Bill Commission. That proposal would cut Medicare and Medicaid reimbursement to hospitals where more than 5 percent of hospital employees are found to be 25 percent heavier than generally accepted height and weight guidelines.

A new superbug that is resistant to even the most powerful antibiotics has entered UK hospitals, experts warn. They say bacteria which make an enzyme called NDM-1 travelled back with NHS patients who had gone abroad to countries like India and Pakistan for treatments such as cosmetic surgery. Although there have only been about 50 cases identified in the UK so far, scientists fear it will go global. Tight surveillance and new drugs are needed says Lancet Infectious Diseases. NDM-1 can exist inside different bacteria, like E.coli, and it makes them resistant to one of the most powerful groups of...

When Alain Reyes’s hair suddenly fell out in a freakish band circling his head, he was not the only one worried about his health. His co-workers at a shipping company avoided him, and his boss sent him home, fearing he had a contagious disease. Only later would Mr. Reyes learn what had caused him so much physical and emotional grief: he had received a radiation overdose during a test for a stroke at a hospital in Glendale, Calif. Other patients getting the procedure, called a CT brain perfusion scan, were being overdosed, too — 37 of them just up the...

Published: 07.19.10, 13:18 / Israel News Hezbollah has deployed more than 5,000 fighters in southern Lebanon villages bordering Israel, the World Tribune newspaper reported. According to the report, Hezbollah fighters seized positions in houses, schools and hospitals and are engaged in observation and collecting intelligence. The source of the report is unclear. (Roee Nahmias)

NEW YORK, July 6, 2010 (LifeSiteNews.com) – “Rights for me, but not for thee” seems to be the theme of the American Civil Liberties Union’s (ACLU) latest duel with the U.S. Catholic Church. In an effort to get the federal government to mandate abortion as an emergency medical service in certain situations, the group has sent a letter to the Centers for Medicaid and Medicare Services demanding it investigate Catholic hospitals for “potential violations” of U.S. law by failing to provide what the organization asserts are “life-saving” abortions."The government must ensure that the well-being of the patient does not take...

Even before the doors opened on the $1.02-billion Los Angeles County-USC Medical Center many observers warned that the new hospital was too small. Now, more than a year and a half of experience appears to confirm it. The overcrowding has become so intense that health officials asked county Supervisor Gloria Molina eight months ago what she would think if the hospital began placing patients in the hallways, the supervisor recalled in an interview. "I said, 'Absolutely not. We will not have patients in the hallway,' " Molina said. Instead, County- USC officials have increased patient transfers to other hospitals. Despite...

During past recessions, the financial stability of hospitals seemed to be nearly indestructible. But researchers at the University of Michigan Health System and St. Joseph Mercy Health System say the current national economic crisis may be an exception. Hospitals are reporting declining profits, likely as a result of Americans losing health insurance as they lose jobs. As a result, hospital plans for renovation and new construction are being scrapped, and hospitals are being forced to reduce hospital staff, according to an analysis in the just-released May/June issue of the Journal of Hospital Medicine. The researchers speculate hospital cutbacks may risk...

This is my first vanity post in ten years on FR. I received an email today from the medical staff coordinator at a hospital in which I am on staff. I would have posted the email but the confidentiality statement at the bottom threatens me with criminal action should I distribute it to non-authorized third parties. The email was to promote a "CME" conference. This is a meeting at which continuing education credits are awarded. Physicians must earn these credits in order to remain licensed. Instead of discussing say, something related to patient care, this conference is by Mike Rock,...

Gary Coleman’s former lawyer claims the actor was divorced from Shannon Price at the time of his death on May 28, People reports. Randy Kester claims the pair’s marriage ended on Aug. 12, 2008, which raises questions about Price’s legal right to take Coleman off life support. “We’re definitely concerned about this and we’re looking into what exactly happened here,” Janet Frank, a spokesperson for the Utah Valley Regional Medical Center — the hospital in which Coleman passed away — told People. “Shannon certainly portrayed herself as his wife to our staff and doctors. We assumed she was telling the...

When President Obama signed his health-care reform last month, he declared it will "lower costs for families and for businesses and for the federal government." So why are Democrats scrambling to pass a new bill that would impose price controls on insurance? In now-they-tell-us hearings on Tuesday, the Senate health committee debated a bill that would give states the power to reject premium increases that state regulators determine are "unreasonable." Some 27 states currently have some form of rate review , but generally don't leverage it because insolvent insurers are expensive for states and bankruptcies limit consumer choices. One exception...

Note: The following text is a quote: www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/presidential-memorandum-hospital-visitation Home • Briefing Room • Presidential Actions • Presidential Memoranda The White House Office of the Press Secretary For Immediate Release April 15, 2010 Presidential Memorandum - Hospital Visitation MEMORANDUM FOR THE SECRETARY OF HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES SUBJECT: Respecting the Rights of Hospital Patients to Receive Visitors and to Designate Surrogate Decision Makers for Medical Emergencies There are few moments in our lives that call for greater compassion and companionship than when a loved one is admitted to the hospital. In these hours of need and moments of pain and anxiety,...

New silken brain implants that mold to the organ's grooves and crevices like shrink-wrap could lead to better devices for monitoring and controlling seizures. "They can also serve as advanced brain-machine interfaces for control of prosthetics and other devices," said John Rogers, a professor of materials science and engineering at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. The new implants could transmit signals from the brain to the prosthetic, Rogers and his colleagues explain in the April 18 issue of the journal Nature Materials.

Per Drudge...server too busy to get article

"Health Law Bans New Doctor-Owned Hospitals, Blocks Expansion of Existing Ones" SNIPPET: "The rules fall under Title VI, Section 6001 of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. The provision is titled “Physician Ownership and Other Transparency – Limitations on Medicare Exceptions to the Prohibition on Certain Physician Referral for Hospitals.” More than 60 doctor-owned hospitals across the country that were in the development stage will be canceled, said Molly Sandvig, executive director of Physician Hospitals of America (PHA). “That’s a lot of access to communities that will be denied,” Sandvig told CNSNews.com. “The existing hospitals are greatly affected. They...