Maria Elena Healy, a registered nurse at Laguna Honda, stated, 'I am just one of the few who have been laid off. They are eliminating an entire department. These people will no longer have the specialty nursing care that we provide.'
Most people leave doctor visits with prescriptions, but still feel unsure—instructions make sense, but no one asks about their life. In contrast, when a provider knows your name, remembers your story, and explains care in a way that fits you, the experience feels different—and that difference matters.
If you were stuck in the waiting room at the fictional Pittsburgh trauma medical center (PTMC) and, as is the case with most real emergency rooms, to be at the Pitt almost certainly means waiting for hours (unless you're imminently dying, but even then ) you would at least have a lot to read. Paperwork and entry forms, for one. Signs warning that aggressive behavior will not be tolerated, a response to the real uptick in violence against healthcare workers.
She's put forward her proposal and we are as interested [as] anyone in making sure that we are not overcharged and subjected to fraud. So I believe we'll have a broader conversation. Yes, sir, [the governor should explain what promise there is insurance companies would actually lower their rates].
Doctors told us my grandson wouldn't live past three months, but they didn't know Elijah was capable of. Today he's 7 years old, stubborn as ever and fighting every day to prove them wrong. Elijah was born with cerebral palsy. Caring for him is a full-time, all-hands-on-deck operation that includes in-home nurses, physical and occupational therapy, school support and a small pharmacy's worth of medications.
"Do you believe that the abortion pill mifepristone is safe and should be prescribed without an in-person visit with a physician?" Sen. Bill Cassidy asked. "I think that every medication has risks and benefits," Means replied. "I think that all patients need to have a thorough conversation with their doctor and have true informed consent before taking any medication."
In light of the systemic dismantling of America's public health agencies, these moves essentially create a shadow infrastructure to maintain some of what is being lost. While this is a promising development, it does nothing to stop a troubling trend that has been emerging for some time: The country is quickly becoming fragmented along partisan lines when it comes to public health.
One might ask why an epidemiologist like me would be interested in Latin American history at this moment. What drew me to that era was the key role that clinicians and public health workers played in the resistance against the dictatorship; their simultaneous push for a national healthcare program; and the ways in which this sector organized, even as more conservative physicians sided with the putschists, happy to see their more progressive colleagues jailed and persecuted.
Members of the New York State Nurses Association (NYSNA), affiliated with National Nurses United, AFL-CIO, went out on a strike to protect their health insurance and pension benefits. Dania Muñoz, a nurse practitioner at Mount Sinai Hospital in New York City, explained that the private hospitals she and others were taking on are 'some of the top paid hospital systems in the country.'
While life expectancy is growing, the average American can expect to spend nearly 12 years in poor health, and lifestyle diseases including heart disease, cancer, stroke and diabetes are now leading causes of death, driving unprecedented expense and tremendous strain on individuals and their families. In 2024, 90% of the nation's $4.9 trillion in annual healthcare spending was attributable to chronic and mental health conditions, and projections suggest that by 2030, more than 80 million Americans will live with three or more chronic diseases.