Even as millions of us glide into a summer with high hopes of putting the pandemic behind us and returning to greater normality, huge public health challenges persist in quelling coronavirus infections, chief among them being — how the heck do we get the unwilling vaccinated now? Just before the long Memorial Day holiday weekend….
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Nursing homes’ lethal health-staffing problem: Churn rates as high as 300%
Churn may be a wonderful word when discussing fresh milk, heavy cream, and butter. But it can be a nightmare term for the too-common, rapid, and lethal turnover that occurs in health staff at nursing homes and other long-term care facilities. Personnel turnover left the aged, injured, and ailing residents at care centers, with an….
Continue ReadingAs virus threat eases, alarms sound on hedge funds owning nursing homes
Just as good news expands about vaccines and declining coronavirus cases and deaths in the nation’s nursing homes and other long-term care facilities, grim information also is developing on how the facilities’ ownership, particularly by wealthy investors, can be lethal to residents. The positive effects of early efforts to get vulnerable long-term care residents and….
Continue ReadingCoronavirus metrics grim as winter sets in and U.S. awaits political transition
As the winter of 2020-21 descends, the coronavirus pandemic is raging, unchecked, from coast-to-coast while the folks in control of the federal government sulk and seem to have checked out from their governing roles. The numbers likely are understated. But roughly 265,000 Americans have been killed by the Covid-19 virus and more than 13 million….
Continue ReadingEven as the pandemic hits grim phase, we have much to be thankful for
With the pandemic tearing through the United States and overwhelming U.S. health care system, we pause from the grim news to tally some of the nation’s blessings in this time. We can be thankful for the courage, fortitude, dedication, and skill of an army of health workers of all kinds. They have put themselves….
Continue ReadingNursing homes, still coping poorly with Covid-19, turn to lobbyists to shield them from legal accountability
Covid-19 infections and deaths are spiking anew in nursing homes and other long-term care facilities, hitting worrisome levels not seen since months ago in the pandemic. The unchecked mess in centers nationwide, but especially in the South and West, is prompting more attention to them — from lobbyists boasting White House ties, health worker “strike….
Continue ReadingAged, ill, and injured get shabby treatment at ‘care’ facilities across country
To paraphrase the late, great writer and activist Maya Angelou, nursing homes and other long-term care facilities are showing the public in the middle of this pandemic just truly what they are. It is hard to believe, still, the shabby way they are treating the aged, sick, and injured. Just consider this sampling of recent….
Continue ReadingNursing homes ‘dumping’ residents and defying ordered safeguards
Owners and operators of nursing homes and other long-term care facilities have mounted a “nimfy” (Not My Fault) defense for the tens of thousands of deaths and infections of their residents during the Covid-19 pandemic. They claim they did the best they could under tough circumstances. And now they want not only special legal protections….
Continue ReadingNursing homes, Covid-19 hot spots now, resisted emergency planning rules
With hurricanes, wildfires and other calamities, authorities pound home to the public the importance of preparedness. So why should preparing for an infection outbreak be any different? Yet more disclosures have raised disturbing questions about the dearth of crucial emergency planning by nursing homes and other long-term care facilities, their owners and operators, and federal….
Continue ReadingAs nursing home toll rises, many U.S. and state responses fall to new lows
Federal and state officials almost seem as if they are competing with each other to race to new lows in their wrong-headed failure to protect elderly, sick, and injured Americans who require institutional care and whose health and lives are being savaged by the novel coronavirus. An estimated 1.5 million Americans live in long-term institutions,….
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