NOTES ON NURSING
Local Nurses Say Hospitals “Skirting the Law”
Area nurses and healthcare advocates met in Worcester with the Health Policy Commission on Friday to fight against mandatory overtime practices being used at local hospitals to skirt the issue of poor staffing. “You cannot allow this to continue,” said Colleen Wolfe, RN at UMass Memorial in her testimony to the commission. “Our patients are suffering every day from deplorable care resulting from understaffing of this hospital, and staff is being forced to practice while exhausted…”
LABOR UPDATES
Twin Cities Security Workers/Cleaners Prepare for Strike “This is the first time in the U.S. that contracted retail workers are going on strike to our knowledge.” Rally for striking workers tonight. Learn more.
| Lawmakers Start Debate on Minnesota’s Minimum Wage A Minnesota House panel opens its discussion of a probable hike to the floor wage Monday by reviewing presentations on the economic impact of the minimum wage. |
Panel on Health Care Workforce, Lacking Budget, Is Left Waiting One of the biggest threats to the success of President Obama’s health care law comes from shortages of doctors, nurses and other health care professionals. But a 15-member commission created to investigate the problem has never met in two and a half years because it has no money from Congress or the administration.
HEALTH CARE
Inside “Bitter Pill:” Steven Brill Discusses His Time Cover Story Steven Brill spent seven months analyzing hundreds of bill from hospitals, doctors, and drug companies and medical equipment manufacturers to find out who is setting such high prices and pocketing the biggest profits. What he discovered, outlined in detail in the cover story of the new issue of TIME, will radically change the way you think about our medical institutions:
Health Care Braces for Sequester Every corner of the healthcare world has something — and potentially a lot — to lose from the $85 billion in automatic spending cuts set to hit the government on March 1.