Blake Farmer

A nurse who left her hospital job for much higher wages as a traveling nurse found the lifestyle hard on her family. But permanent jobs but those don’t pay much better than they did pre-pandemic.

With few options for health care in their rural community, a Tennessee couple’s experience with one outrageous bill could have led to a deadly delay when they needed help the most.

ECMO, the highest level of mechanical life support, functions as a temporary heart and lungs for some of COVID-19’s sickest patients. But the waitlist is too long for many patients who need it.

As Community Health Systems has downsized, what remain are like zombie hospitals – little more than legal entities still taking patients to court even though the new owners don’t sue.

Some immigrant groups are closing the ethnic gap on COVID-19 shots. For many Kurdish Americans, their fears about vaccination are entangled with their experiences in refugee camps after fleeing Iraq.

A majority of white, rural conservatives in Tennessee are open to getting the vaccine at some point, but at least 45% won’t consider it. Rates in Alabama, Georgia, and Mississippi are also lagging.

Technically, the only Tennesseans currently eligible to get the coronavirus vaccine are health care workers, long-term care residents, and people 75 and older. But don’t expect strict enforcement.

Tennessee has opened COVID-19 vaccine eligibility to anyone over age 75. But people under 75 are getting it, as health officials are not checking identification before administering the shots.

Health officials are changing how they assess the regional nonprofits that find organs to transplant. The goal is to understand, and eventually fix, the geographic disparities in organ availability.

Many U.S. hospitals are struggling to find enough space and staff to treat COVID-19 patients. The surge in new cases has forced them to rethink how they use space, manage staff, and handle treatment.