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Across California, public health departments are losing experienced staffers to exhaustion, partisan politics and jobs that pay more for less work. The public health nurses, epidemiologists and microbiologists who work to keep our communities healthy are abandoning the field.
Managers are trapped in a pricey hiring cycle, competing for critical care nurses who can monitor covid patients on life support. Some hospitals are looking abroad to replace staffers who quit to become travel nurses or leave the profession.
KHN and California Healthline staff made the rounds on national and local media this week to discuss their stories. Here’s a collection of their appearances.
Even though they perform the same intimate tasks as nursing home and hospital workers, in-home health aides initially were left out of California’s vaccine mandate. They must be fully vaccinated by Nov. 30.
The Biden administration is requiring workers at health care facilities that accept Medicare and Medicaid payments to be vaccinated. For the minority of nursing students who have refused a shot, the new policy could mean they can’t get the training they need in a hospital or other health care venue.
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.
After months of burnout from the pandemic, hospitals are scrambling to fill nursing and other jobs. Some administrators, particularly in rural areas, are afraid to implement vaccine mandates that alienate their short-handed staffs.
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.
Kaiser Health News gives readers a chance to comment on a recent batch of stories.
Changes would allow N95 sales for industries other than health care 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.
Enrollment in baccalaureate nursing programs reportedly grew nearly 6% percent in 2020.
Carmela Coyle, who represents California’s hospitals in the state Capitol, is a power player whose clout has grown during the pandemic. Though she hasn’t won every battle, she has helped shape the state’s response to the crisis.
Kaiser Health News gives readers a chance to comment on a recent batch of stories.
As covid patients flood California emergency rooms, hospitals are increasingly desperate to find enough staffers to care for them all. But some nurses worry hospitals will use the pandemic as an excuse to permanently roll back their hard-won nurse-patient ratios.
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