Showing posts with label Medicine. Show all posts
New Jersey hospital deports unconscious stroke victim
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A US hospital deported an unconscious stroke victim after noticing that the patient was an undocumented immigrant from Poland. Polish health officials are furious that the man was “dumped on their doorstep” before the transfer was approved.
“Imagine being carted around like a sack of potatoes,” Polish Consul General Ewa Junczyk-Ziomecka told New York Daily News, describing the incident in which 69-year old Wladyslaw Haniszewski was unconsciously deported to his homeland.
Haniszewski, who suffers from a blood disease, lived in Perth Amboy, N.J., for 30 years. He recently lost his job, apartment, and health insurance, and was forced to move into a homeless shelter, the Daily News reports.
After the man suffered a dangerous stroke, a friend named Jerzy Jedra took him to the New Jersey hospital for treatment. When officials at the Robert Wood Johnson University Hospital noticed that the patient had no health insurance and lived in the US without documentation, they sent the comatose man to Poland. US hospitals are legally required to provide emergency care to anyone who needs it, but are allowed to deport stabilized undocumented immigrants.
But in order to deport someone, a US hospital must first get consent from either the patient, a family member, or a court guardian. Officials at the Polish consulate claim that no one was contacted, and that Haniszewski’s family was never informed that the man was deported.
Meanwhile, Haniszewski was left at the doorstep of a hospital in Boleslawiec, Poland. The facility is now being forced to take care of the man’s medical payments, which have cost “a few hundred dollars” a day, the hospital’s deputy director told TVN.
Junczyk-Ziomecka, who works at the Polish consulate in New York City, said she was trying to help the comatose man, only to realize last week that he was gone. Polish officials are furious about the deportation, especially since the 69-year-old patient was not in a healthy state to sign off on the transfer.
“Behind our backs they transported the unconscious man to Poland,” she told TVN, noting that she was most furious about the hospital’s decision to dump the man at the facility. “I cannot imagine such a situation that the decision about transporting an unconscious person could be made without agreement. Between the two institutions must be a contract, there must be documents. You cannot simply leave a patient at the door and drive away.”
At least 800 people have been deported from US hospitals without consent over the past six years in 15 states, the Associated Press reported in April. Medical repatriation has become increasingly common, but AP suggests that the actual number of such hospital deportations is much higher than figures show. Some health advocates are afraid that repatriations will occur more frequently after major components of Obamacare are implemented in 2014, since the US government will reduce its payments to hospitals that care for large numbers of uninsured patients.
Shena Erlington, director of the Health Justice Program, told the Daily News that although hospitals may face the burden of paying for uninsured patients, medical care providers should not have the ability to deport patients.
“It’s an incredibly disturbing case,” Lori Nessel, director of the Center for Social Justice at Seton Hall University School of Law, said about the Haniszewski repatriation. “This kind of action seems clearly illegal and also not ethical, but it’s hard to bring forth a legal action.”
The New Jersey hospital denies any wrongdoing and claims that the patient was informed of his discharge and care plan. The patient is awake, but unable to speak or communicate with doctors.
Texas abortion bill aborted: Filibuster denies passage of hospital-closing law
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| Hundreds gather to protest against the anti-abortion bill, support Senator Davis in her filibuster (Image from Twitter/@joetheple) |
The Texas Senate was at odds over an abortion bill demanding all hospitals in the state performing the operation be shut down. Senator Wendy Davis spent most of her day staging a filibuster. Later, the governor stated the bill came too late to pass.
Davis, representing Fort Worth, staged a filibuster during the session, which denied the bill’s passage due to use of available time.
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| Senator Wendy Davis (Image from Twitter/@TheObamaDiary) |
She was wearing pink tennis shoes, prepared for an hours-long stand: the rules of a filibuster demand that the person remain standing, without leaning on a desk or taking any breaks, even for meals or to use the bathroom.
In her opening remarks, Davis said she was "rising on the floor today to humbly give voice to thousands of Texans" and called Republican efforts to pass the bill a "raw abuse of power."
Davis tried to stay comfortable by shifting her weight from hip to hip and walking around the desk. When a male bill supporter stood up in the gallery and shouted, “Abortion is genocide,” Davis carried on with her speech.
Her filibuster eventually lasted for almost 11 hours, and was dramatically ended minutes before midnight.
Republicans demanded that Davis stay on topic, a requirement they say she didn’t follow – plus, a colleague attempted to give her a back brace, which lawmakers protested.
Democrat senators chose Davis to protest against the bill as she had her first child as a teenager and graduated from Harvard Law School afterwards.
Outside, all throughout the day, crowds of women stood in line, waiting for people in the gallery to give up their seats.
Hundreds of protesters clapped and shouted for the last 15 minutes of the special session in attempt to run out the clock, and they succeeded: according to the Texas State Senator Whitmire, "there was a vote, but it was an invalid vote because it happened after midnight.”
However, if the law is signed anytime soon, it would virtually mean the closing of every abortion clinic in Texas, the second largest state in terms of population (26 million people).
Only five out of 42 clinics will be able to remain in operation due to the law indicating that abortions should only be carried out at surgical centers.
Thanks to the powerful voices of thousands of Texans, #SB5 is dead. An incredible victory for Texas women and those who love them.
— Wendy Davis (@WendyDavisTexas) June 26, 2013
Legendary gunmaker Kalashnikov flown to Moscow for treatment
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| Mikhail Kalashnikov, world famous inventor, with an AK-47 assault rifle. (RIA Novosti / Vladimir Vyatkin) |
93-year-old Mikhail Kalashnikov will be flown to Moscow for hospital treatment on an Emergencies Ministry plane after being taken ill in his home city of Izhevsk. The iconic gunsmith is said to be in a serious condition.
The inventor of the AK-47 assault rifle had been admitted to a cardiology hospital in the Russian city of Izhevsk, in the Urals, after suffering a pulmonary thrombosis, when doctors “decided to send Kalashnikov to a Moscow’s clinic for medical supervision,” said Emergencies Ministry’s spokesperson Irina Rossius.
A flying hospital complete with a team of doctors and hi-tech equipment has been sent to bring Kalashnikov who also suffers from a heart condition to the capital.
At the end of May Mikhail Kalashnikov spent almost a fortnight undergoing tests in an Izhevsk hospital.
While in hospital the arms designer agreed to transfer the rights to use the Kalashnikov brand name to the Izhmash weapons factory, Russia's largest producer of military automatic and sniper weapons.
The engineer’s health is said to have worsened in December 2012. After a routine check up on December 20 Kalashnikov had to stay in intensive care for some time.
The weapons designer has until recently regularly attended work at the military plant in Izhevsk named after him.
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| Mikhail Kalashnikov (AFP Photo / Natalia Kolesnikova) |
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| New Kalashnikov AK-12 model 2012, designed by the NPO Izhmash . (Photo courtesy of NPO Izhmash / RIA Novosti) |
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| Senior Sergeant Mikhail Kalashnikov as he designed his AK-47 assault rifle, 1947 (RIA Novosti) |
Americans fatter than ever, obesity officially called a 'disease'
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| Reuters / Rick Wilking |
US obesity rates have reached a record high, and physicians have officially classified it as a “disease”, which will likely change the way doctors and health insurance providers treat the 28.9 percent of American adults who are severely overweight. Obesity in the US has reached a new high, continuing a 15-year streak in which the rate increased annually. The Centers for Disease Control announced that in 2012, 28.9 percent of adults were obese, which surpassed the 28.7 who carried excessive weight in 2011. The agency also announced that the country’s obese population is 50 percent greater than it was in 1997, when only 19.4 percent of Americans were at a dangerously unhealthy weight. The rise in obesity comes despite efforts by First Lady Michelle Obama to promote healthy eating, and New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s size restriction on sugary drinks. The American Medical Association now has a new approach: the organization hopes Americans will shed pounds if obesity is perceived in a new way. The nation’s largest physician’s groupon Tuesday classified obesity as a medical “disease”, despite the recommendations of a committee of experts who studied the issue for a year. The new categorization suggests that obese Americans are suffering from an illness comparable to cancer, genetic disorders, neurological conditions, and infectious diseases, many of which require significant medical treatment. “Given the existing limitations of [Body Mass Index] to diagnose obesity in clinical practice, it is unclear that recognizing obesity as a disease, as opposed to a ‘condition’ or ‘disorder’, will result in improved health outcomes,” the AMA Council on Science and Public Health wrote in its conclusion. But the association on Tuesday voted to classify obesity as a disease in order to “change the way the medical community tackles this complex issue,” AMA board member Dr. Patrice Harris said in a statement. Americans are classified as obese if they are 35 or more pounds overweight -- a condition that resulted in $147 billion in medical costs in 2008. Critics of the AMA classification claim that it suggests obesity is an uncontrollable condition, free from personal responsibility. Supporters believe it will simply help overweight Americans acquire the help they need. “Up until now, without that classification, the path to obesity surgery (has been) very challenging,” Dr. Leena Khaitan, director of the bariatric surgery program at University Hospitals Case Medical Center, told Fox News. “Oftentimes people have to pay extra to have that type of insurance policy, (and) many employers choose not to cover it because it’s considered an elective operation. Now, we’re saying obesity surgery is no longer elective, it is truly something that will treat (this) disease and is potentially lifesaving.” Khaitan added that the classification may also make it easier for obese patients to obtain insurance coverage for nutritional counseling. In its statement on the change, the AMA also indicated that the classification “could result in greater investments by government and the private sector to develop and reimburse obesity treatments,” and that employers may be less likely to discriminate on the basis of weight if they are required to cover obesity treatments. But with doctors more willing to treat obesity as a disease and provide bariatric surgery, obese Americans may be more inclined to go under the knife than change their lifestyles.
