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Squeezed by staffing costs, some healthcare systems are creating their own agencies
Like many nurses these days, Alex Scala got a big pay hike when she switched jobs recently. Scala also received a welcome mix of assignments when she joined Pittsburgh-based Allegheny Health Network. She signed on with a newly created team that works shifts in various units within the system’s 14 hospitals. After working as a […]
Trauma surgeons detail horrors of Uvalde mass shooting, call for reforms
When Dr. Roy Guerrero, a pediatrician in Uvalde, Texas, testified before a U.S. House committee Wednesday about gun violence, he told lawmakers about the horror of seeing the bodies of two of the 19 children killed in the Robb Elementary massacre. They were so pulverized, he said, that they could be identified only by their […]
Delays for autism diagnosis and treatment grew even larger during the pandemic
Wylie James Prescott, 3, had to wait more than a year after his autism diagnosis to begin behavioral therapy, even though research shows early treatment of autism can be crucial for children’s long-term development. His mother, Brandie Kurtz, said his therapy wasn’t approved through Georgia’s Medicaid program until recently, despite her continued requests. “I know […]
Record number of Americans sign up for ACA health insurance
A record 13.6 million Americans have signed up for health coverage for 2022 on the Affordable Care Act marketplaces, with nearly a month remaining to enroll in most states, the Biden administration announced Wednesday. President Joe Biden’s top health advisers credited the increased government subsidies, which lowered out-of-pocket costs, for the surge in enrollment. They […]
Mounting COVID deaths fuel school bus driver shortages
GRIFFIN, Georgia — Natalia D’Angelo got sick right after school started in August. She was driving a school bus for special education students in Griffin-Spalding County School System about 40 miles south of Atlanta and contracted COVID-19. One of her three sons, Julian Rodriguez-D’Angelo, said his mother, who was not vaccinated against the COVID virus, […]
Low wages, pandemic gut staffing support for those with disabilities
Ernestine “Erma” Bryant likes her job, but the pay is a problem. She works in a caregiver role as a “direct support professional” in Tifton, Georgia, helping people who have intellectual and developmental disabilities with basic functions such as dressing, bathing and eating. Bryant said it’s fulfilling work. “You can help people be successful — […]
States pull back on COVID data even amid delta surge
Two state government websites in Georgia recently stopped posting updates on COVID-19 cases in prisons and long-term care facilities, just as the dangerous delta variant was taking hold. Data has been disappearing recently in other states as well. Florida, for example, now reports covid cases, deaths and hospitalizations once a week, instead of daily, as […]
Biden’s ‘no-jab, no-job’ order puts nursing homes in a quandry
President Joe Biden’s edict that nursing homes must ensure their workers are vaccinated against COVID-19 presents a challenge for an industry struggling to entice its lowest-paid workers to get shots without driving them to seek employment elsewhere. Although 83% of residents in the average nursing facility are vaccinated, only 61% of a home’s workers are […]