Nursing homes and other long-term care facilities keep bleeding staff, and their inability to hire and keep workers poses significant risks to the well-being of aged, sick, and injured residents — a vulnerable group already savaged by the coronavirus pandemic. The long-term care industry employed 3 million personnel in July, which is 380,000 fewer staff….
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As Delta variant slams hospitals, forecast warns of 100,000 more virus deaths
The coronavirus keeps ripping through the country with a fourth, Delta-variant fueled surge that also is producing confounding, confused behaviors that only add to the pandemic’s considerable gloom. The pandemic, which already has killed at least 635,000 Americans and infected just under 40 million of us, is slamming hospitals. More than 100,000 coronavirus patients, including….
Continue ReadingSenate Democrats tackle nursing home menaces that also made virus so lethal
Senate Democrats, including chairs of two powerful committees, have started to tackle the nightmarish problems that experts blame for allowing the coronavirus pandemic to take a terrible toll on vulnerable residents of nursing homes and other long-term care facilities. Under a bill introduced by Ron Wyden, an Oregon senator and chair of the Senate Finance….
Continue ReadingBiden Administration reinstates stiff fines for nursing home safety violations
The Biden Administration has ended another egregious health-related policy of its predecessor, reversing the leniency the Trump Administration gave to nursing homes in penalizing them for putting residents at risk or injuring them. Regulators may now return to slapping owners and operators of problem facilities with mounting, costly daily fines, rather than giving them a….
Continue ReadingBig Pharma is hard to rein in. Just look at two drug cases grabbing headlines.
Consumers have gotten eyebrow-raising views of Big Pharma’s ugly business practices and the tough and sometimes sketchy efforts to rein in the industry’s ravenous pursuit of profits — in settling claims over distributors inundating the country with lethal painkillers, or with a maker’s behind-the-scenes campaign to win U.S. approval of an Alzheimer’s medication based on….
Continue ReadingBig reconsideration under way for long-term care as coronavirus toll eases
Residents and their loved ones may have reached a major turning point with nursing homes and other long-term care facilities, agonizing as to whether the institutions really can provide safe, hygienic, and welcoming places for the vulnerable — or whether other, tough options must be considered. Who can forget that that 132,000 elderly, injured, and….
Continue ReadingU.S. targets July 4 for independence from grip of coronavirus pandemic
The campaign to quell the coronavirus pandemic is a lot like a Herculean tug of war now, with the prospect tantalizingly near of pulling a big measure of success over the line. The Biden Administration, to its credit, is not easing a bit in conveying the urgency of its task in dealing with a disease….
Continue ReadingAs the world begs for vaccine doses, millions in U.S. shun the shots
After months of chafing under tough restrictions to battle the coronavirus pandemic, who among us isn’t ready for more relaxed times, especially as the summer nears? For tens of millions of Americans, vaccination means new safety and freedoms, notably for long awaited closeness with loved ones. But are those allures and more enough to coax….
Continue ReadingBattle stays bumpy against an uneven pandemic, fueling further uncertainty
The campaign to conquer the coronavirus pandemic is having its cautious optimism tested by a stubborn and concerning surge of cases in the Midwest and Northeast, as well as frustrating vaccine supply problems — worsened by manufacturing bungles in a Baltimore plant. Expert forecasters now see options for how the crucial next several months could….
Continue ReadingCan U.S. billions keep seniors at home and out of problem nursing homes?
As the coronavirus pandemic’s most catastrophic effects recede in nursing homes and other long-term care facilities, notably due to vaccinations and other public health measures, residents and their loved ones still face costly, confounding issues in safeguarding the aged, sick, and injured. The Biden Administration wants to spend hundreds of billions of dollars to help…..
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