Billings Clinic in Montana is past the tipping point as it looks for places to add intensive care unit beds and is on the cusp of rationing care to deal with the surge of sick covid patients in a state with significant anti-vaccination sentiment.
If Gov. Gavin Newsom survives Tuesday’s recall election, the health care unions that have campaigned on his behalf intend to pressure him to follow through on his promise to establish a government-run health system in California.
This year, 23 states passed more than 70 pandemic-related provisions affecting nursing homes, including measures setting minimum staffing levels, expanding visitation protections and limiting owners’ profit margins.
Citing the deaths of thousands of health care workers, the new rules will force employers to report fatalities or hospitalizations to the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, and provide higher-quality protective gear, among other actions.
Changes would allow N95 sales for industries other than healthcare and signal an end to the hospital practice of reusing the masks considered essential for worker safety.
Exclusive: The head of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases says health workers ‘have lived up to the oath they take’ but says shortages of protective gear have contributed to excess deaths.
As The Guardian and KHN end Lost on the Frontline, a yearlong project to count health care worker deaths in the pandemic, the White House is under pressure to take up the task.
Antonio Espinoza, a hospice nurse in Southern California, ministered to terminally ill patients, including those with covid. He tested positive for covid five days after getting his first dose of vaccine and died a few weeks later.
In the herculean effort to vaccinate America, the emphasis so far has been on trying to increase the number of vaccine doses available. Soon there could be a shortfall in people to administer the shots.