Doctors are diagnosing a new stage of COVID-19 recovery: patients who take much longer than usual to regain consciousness after coming off a ventilator. And a growing number of doctors are worried some patients aren’t being given the time they need to wake up.
Massachusetts offers support and resources for people isolating because of COVID-19 — helping them make choices that keep everyone safe. Experts say that is work that more states need to fund.
“The awful truth is families have no control over what’s happening,” one advocate says.
Health care providers are seeing the effects of climate change in hospitals across the U.S. ― and urging their peers to take action.
“I know we will succeed somewhat and we will fail somewhat,” says one of the plan’s chief architects. “We won’t be able to find every single person — but we will hopefully prevent a lot of deaths.”
Revenue is way down for primary care, specialty physicians and some hospitals as patients avoid non-urgent visits. Practices small and large are doling out layoffs and furloughs to staff.
People in recovery from drug or alcohol addiction have to weather a new storm of depression, anxiety and isolation during the pandemic, just as the social supports of Alcoholics Anonymous and other 12-step programs move online.
When patients need long-term treatment with intravenous antibiotics, hospitals usually let them manage their treatment at home — but not if they have a history of injection drug use. A Boston program wants to change that.
A parental consent requirement for minors who seek abortions is still on the books in left-leaning Massachusetts, as well as about two dozen other states. But a proposed Massachusetts law seeks to repeal that consent requirement and shore up the right to abortion in case the Supreme Court strikes down the federal right to the procedure.
Public health officials are adopting a law enforcement tool, the mass spectrometer, to instantly identify potentially deadly levels of opioids in local drug supplies.