Many grown-ups may love to grin, coo, and snuggle with babies and little kids, telling themselves that they’d bust through walls for the sake of adorable youngsters’ well-being. But evidence indicates the nation has a far way to go to better children’s health. Although the U.S. spends more per capita than most wealthy, democratic nations….
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The U.S. way? Rich reap good health, while poor toil in sickness
Here’s something that many Americans likely would want to think twice about letting happen: Should good health and long lives be just another of the spoils reserved to the rich? Vox, a news and information site, has posted a provocative dig into national data on longevity — a measure that has raised experts’ concern with….
Continue ReadingVegas shooting victims finding tough road to recovery from mass tragedy
When illness, accidents, and natural- or man-made calamities strike, victims discover in their long slog to recovery that our health insurance system only aggravates their pain and anxiety. That’s a painful lesson that hundreds of Americans will keep struggling with in 2018, months after a madman rained gunfire from high-powered rifles down into a Las….
Continue ReadingMedicine needs to face up to sexism and sexual harassment in medical workplaces
The profession of medicine gets mixed reviews in rolling back the centuries of chauvinism, arrogance, and boorish behavior of top (male) doctors. It’s now generally if grudgingly recognized that health care, though it may be a life-and-death practice, needn’t be a rude and obnoxious one. Nurses, many of them women but many men, too, shouldn’t be….
Continue ReadingUnited Medical Center’s woes deepen as ratings group rips DC-area hospitals
Even as District of Columbia officials struggle with deepening woes at the United Medical Center (UMC), advocates from a national, independent, and nonprofit group have offered a dim review of hospitals in the DC area. The bad news keeps piling on at UMC, a leading provider of medical care for communities of color in the….
Continue ReadingProfiteers debasing hospice care, insulting dead with body parts trafficking
Although countless doctors and nurses put in untold blood, sweat, and tears to provide quality care to their patients, health care profiteers can undo these good works in an instant with shameful plundering. Here is a roundup from multiple fronts. The nonprofit, nonpartisan Kaiser Health News Service deserves credit for its painful reporting on the….
Continue ReadingLas Vegas tragedy helps highlight what’s right with nation’s health care system
Caregivers and the community in Las Vegas, Nev., deserve a salute for their response to the gun violence last week, which could have overwhelmed a less-prepared community’s medical system. Las Vegas isn’t a giant metropolis (pop. 2 million in its metro area), and, due to the high costs to operate such a facility, it has….
Continue ReadingPuerto Rico engulfed by hurricane-caused health care crisis
Even as President Trump belittles Puerto Rican political leaders, the Americans on the island have been swamped by a hurricane-caused health care crisis, according to doctors, hospitals, and nursing homes there. The disturbing news reports show that sick and injured patients, with gas supplies limited, are struggling to navigate tree-blocked roads to get to hospitals….
Continue ReadingIn hurricanes’ wake, new concerns about elderly and tainted waters
Although Hurricanes Harvey and Irma have stormed off into the record books, their harms, particularly to health, persist for Texans, Floridians, and residents of the Caribbean. Recovery and return to normalcy will take the ravaged areas longer than many Americans realize, experts say. And they already are uncovering systemic woes, some fatal, with which planners….
Continue ReadingIn hospitals, angry guys with guns (even with badges) are a bad idea
Medicine and law enforcement can be a combustible combination, as a widely publicized incident in a Utah emergency room has reminded. The ugly incident has underscored the importance of hospitals keeping big, upset guys with guns cordoned off from caregivers, as well as the importance of front-line medical personnel knowing, respecting, and protecting patients’ privacy….
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