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America is running short on four key antibiotics and respiratory drugs for children, as seasonal bugs come back with a bang after being suppressed during lockdowns. Health officials have declared a shortage of amoxicillin, a vital antibiotic used to treat bacterial infections such as pneumonia, respiratory infections and strep throat. But doctors on the ground are also reporting dwindling stocks of Augmentin - a antibiotic drug that uses amoxicillin alongside clavulanic acid - Tamiflu, the most commonly used flu medication in US hospitals, and albuterol, an inhaler for asthma and to relieve other lung symptoms.

The state’s health secretary said the decision to earmark the state’s initial batches of Johnson & Johnson’s single-dose COVID-19 vaccine to school employees and child care workers is not delaying senior citizens and those with high-risk health conditions from their turn at getting the vaccine. Rather, Acting Health Secretary Alison Beam said it is intended to vaccinate educators without putting additional stress on the efforts underway by hospitals or providers to get shots in the arms of those in the Phase 1A of the state’s vaccination program. “We know that there is significant interest among all Pennsylvanians about when they...

Stable coronavirus patients could be taken off ventilators in favour of those more likely to survive, it emerged on Wednesday, as another sharp rise in deaths left the UK braced for the outbreak to reach up to 1,000 deaths a day by the end of the week. In a stark new document issued by the British Medical Association, doctors set out guidelines to ration care if the NHS becomes overwhelmed with new cases as the outbreak moves towards its peak. A rise in the death toll of 563 brought the overall total to 2,352, an increase of 31% on Tuesday’s...

In one short sentence, [Amira Hass] neatly encapsulates the moral rot at the heart of the modern multicultural left: “We don’t rate suffering.” .... No one has the right to compare in any way the suffering of peoples and human beings, or to quantify it, rank it, calculate it … We don’t quantify. We don’t rate suffering. This, in a nutshell, is the moral abdication at the heart of today’s multicultural left: In its ostensibly noble desire to ensure that no suffering goes unnoticed or unattended, it has abandoned the very essence of morality – the ability to draw distinctions,...

Shortages of beds, doctors and nurses in the Baltimore VA Medical Center’s emergency room resulted in nearly half of a sample of patients spending more than 6 hours at the facility, including one who waited more than 24 hours, according to a critical inspection report released this month. … The Department of Veterans Affairs inspector general’s office detailed the shortcomings in a report that criticized the hospital’s leadership for lacking policies to provide on-call doctors and nurses to boost staffing when patient volume surged. Backups in treating patients led to some being examined in the emergency department’s triage area, without...

“Democrats choose Death Panels…” announces the Comedy Channel’s Jon Stewart with mock horror, “…for themselves!” It’s a very funny bit. The Washington Post’s Karen Tumulty plays it straight as she reports: “Ultimately, some candidates, including incumbents, will have to be left for dead so that the parties can spend where it might still make a difference.” Then, there’s Michael Barone in the Washington Examiner. Mr. Barone has probably forgotten more about American politics than most political commentators will ever know. The editor for 40 years of the Almanac of American Politics knows political panic when he sees it. He nails...

The story that has the political establishment all abuzz today is the plan for Democrats to concentrate party resources on those with the best chances of winning so Nancy Pelosi can still wield the gavel. The sacrificial lambs and potential survivors will be chosen by party leaders in the next week or so. Not a great consolation for those from highly contested districts who were told they were better off voting for Obamacare than not. From today’s NY Times: "[Democratic] party leaders are preparing a brutal triage of their own members in hopes of saving enough seats to keep a...

The United Kingdom’s National Health Service (NHS) has ruled that a so-called “miracle drug” called Avastin will not be provided to the nation’s cancer patients because it is “not cost-effective.” Avastin is widely used in other countries and in the UK for patients who can afford to pay or who have supplemental private insurance. It is said to prolong the lives of persons suffering from advanced stages of bowel cancer by up to two years. Spokesman for the NHS, Mortimer Sepelible, defended the decision as “simple economics. Look, the government is hemorrhaging red ink. We’ve got to make cuts somewhere....

Nobel Prize winning economist Paul Krugman says that the recently enacted healthcare legislation will end up saving the US government money in the long run. “Right now, a huge proportion of the nation’s health spending goes to prolonging the lives of the terminally ill,” Krugman pointed out. “By instituting a government review of both patients and treatments this waste of resources can be eliminated.” “Characterizing this review as a ‘death panel,’ as critics like Sarah Palin have done, is overly melodramatic.” Krugman said. “Denying futile treatment isn’t the same as putting someone to death. I mean, everyone dies. It’s merely...

LAHORE: Dozen of media persons have been subjected to the horrible torture by doctors in the presence of police at Jinnah Hospital here on Wednesday. Tension began when media persons went to hospital to cover a demonstration staged by the relative of 60-year-old patient, who died due to alleged negligence of the doctor. The doctors became annoyed when journalists asked them the reason for the death of patient while instead of answering the question, they started beating the media persons. According to Geo correspondent Faisal Karim, media persons were invited for talks at the hospital’s conference room, where they were...

A Pennsylvania Health Department report says a nurse twice called the name of a Philadelphia man who died of a heart attack in a hospital waiting room but never went to look for him. The report issued Thursday found that hospital staff first called 63-year-old Joaquin (wah-KEEN') Rivera's name 17 minutes after he arrived at Aria Health's Frankford campus on Nov. 28. He had already stopped moving. Hospital personnel checked on Rivera an hour after he arrived only when another patient alerted staff he wasn't moving. Police say Rivera's watch was stolen after he lost consciousness.....

WASHINGTON: Tiger Woods is donating $3 million for assistance in the rescue and relief effort in quake-hit Haiti, says hip-hop mogul Russell Simmons. The scandal-hit golfer is planning a donation to dispatch a cargo plane with a mobile hospital to Haiti. "Tiger Woods is doing something AMAZING!!!! I heard [he's] donating to send a cargo plane with a mobile hospital out there. Keep ur prayers high!" US magazine quoted Simmons as saying on his Twitter page. According to New York Daily News, Woods' donation - which would total 3 million dollars - would include having "50 EMTs to go set...

PHILADELPHIA (AP) -- A school counselor suffering an apparent heart attack died in a Philadelphia emergency room after waiting nearly 80 minutes for help - and a trio of homeless drug addicts nearby stole his watch instead of seeking aid, police said. Joaquin Rivera, 63, died before seeing a triage nurse at Atria Health's Frankford Campus over the weekend, police said.

New York state health officials recently laid out this wrenching scenario for a small group of medical professionals from New York-Presbyterian Hospital: A 32-year-old man with cystic fibrosis is rushed to the hospital with appendicitis in the midst of a worsening pandemic caused by the H1N1 flu virus, which has mutated into a more deadly form. The man is awaiting a lung transplant and brought with him the mechanical ventilator that helps him breathe. New York’s governor has declared a state of emergency and hospitals are following the state’s pandemic ventilator allocation plan — actual guidelines drafted in 2007 that...

ORLANDO, Fla. (WOFL FOX 35) - A proposed state guideline for dealing with an influenza pandemic is causing quite a stir. The Florida Department of Health is proposing that health care providers, notably hospitals, pull the plug on the most critically-ill patients in order to treat "healthier" patients.

"I'm working closely with my economic advisors to explore any and all additional options and measures that we might take to promote job creation," Obama said after the Labor Department reported that 263,000 Americans lost jobs in September and the unemployment rate rose to 9.8 percent. Embedded in those numbers was this sobering statistic. The number of Americans unemployed for 27 weeks increased by 450,000 and now totals 5.4 million. The White House may soon ask Congress to extend three parts of the original $787 billion stimulus law signed in mid-February. * Extend the current $8,000 first-time home buyer tax...

President Obama’s health care TV special turned out to be more revealing than he intended. When asked whether he would accept the limitations on care prescribed by a government run health plan like Medicare when it came to members of his own family, the President responded: “no.” “A national health care plan is aimed at ensuring a minimum standard of care for ordinary people who don’t have the resources for better care,” the President explained. “People with missions critical to the survival and prosperity of the nation—like the president, cabinet, members of congress and the like—will, naturally, need to receive...

CHICAGO – Doctors know some patients needing lifesaving care won't get it in a flu pandemic or other disaster. The gut-wrenching dilemma will be deciding who to let die. Now, an influential group of physicians has drafted a grimly specific list of recommendations for which patients wouldn't be treated. They include the very elderly, seriously hurt trauma victims, severely burned patients and those with severe dementia. The suggested list was compiled by a task force whose members come from prestigious universities, medical groups, the military and government agencies. They include the Department of Homeland Security, the Centers for Disease Control...

Introduction: I recently wrote an article describing a variety of examples of poor behavior demonstrated by patients in the Triage section of my Emergency Department. While the article was written primarily to introduce the reader to some of the actual (rather than media-generated) challenges encountered by an ER nurse in a humorous vein (which is the modus operandi for all of my writing), my article evoked a tremendous negative response with regard to the readers' personal ER experiences. A majority of responders related their unpleasant experiences when they or a loved one was treated in an ER. The most common...

When you take a close-up look at the red ink gushing from the state Capitol, it becomes a very ugly sight. For starters, the problem is worse than first thought. Nonpartisan Legislative Analyst Elizabeth G. Hill last month projected a nearly $10-billion deficit spread over the current and next fiscal years. Then last week, reports leaked that the Schwarzenegger administration, with updated numbers, is projecting a $14-billion deficit. Actually, it's $14.5 billion. Add to that some minimal reserve any prudent budget should include -- say, at least $1 billion -- and it's a $15.5-billion hole that must be filled next...