NOTES ON NURSING
Forced Flu Shots Not the Cure Too many hospitals, whose mantra is profits, not patient safety, favor forced vaccinations while cutting nursing or housekeeping staff, and denying paid sick leave, as most industrialized nations ensure.
Staffing Danger on Wards More than 57% of those asked in the survey described their ward or unit as sometimes or always “dangerously understaffed”. Of those who had witnessed poor care, nearly 30% said they had seen it happen regularly.
LABOR UPDATES
Everybody’s Workin’ for … The Health Care Benefits Three-quarters of retirees said they worked longer than they would have otherwise to maintain access to their health plan.
FoxxConn Claims it Will Allow Free Elections for Union Posts Labor analysts said that while the latest plans show willingness on the part of the company to engage its workers, they would not mean much of a change, with the key being how the representatives will be chosen.
HEALTH CARE
Health Care’s Trick Coin This month, Johnson & Johnson is facing more than 10,000 lawsuits over an artificial hip that has been recalled because of a 40 percent failure rate within five years. Mistakes happen in medicine, but internal documents showed that executives had known of flaws with the device for some time, but had failed to make them public. It would be nice to imagine that this kind of behavior is exceptional, but in reality, the entire evidence base for medicine has been undermined by a casual lack of transparency.