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At least two hospitals in Austin, Texas were left without water and heat on Tuesday night — forcing patients and staff to transport human waste in trash bags and refrain from showering or even washing their hands. The dire situation, happening amid a historic winter storm that has caused widespread power outages in the state, forced evacuations at both St. David’s South Austin Medical Center and Dell Children’s Medical Center, according to local reports.

In Great Britain, a group of hospitals has instructed midwives in their maternity departments to use different terms when treating transgender patients in order to be more “gender-inclusive,” substituting “chestfeeding” for “breastfeeding” and replacing “breastmilk” with ““human milk” or “breast/chestmilk” or “milk from the feeding mother or parent.” “Terms like ‘chestfeeding’ and ‘human milk’ are being introduced at an NHS trust in a bid to boost inclusivity,” Bristol Live reports. “Staff have been asked to use gender-neutral language alongside – not instead of – traditional terms to ensure that all groups are represented.” LBC reported of Brighton and Sussex University...

Numbers of incidental infections could form significant percentage of total hospitalizations. States throughout the U.S. are failing to distinguish between patients hospitalized because of COVID-19 and patients who merely test positive for the disease while being hospitalized for other reasons. Hospitalizations have for months been viewed as one of the critical indicators of the coronavirus pandemic: Countries worldwide have relied heavily on the number of patients sent to hospitals because of the virus as a way of measuring how severe a region or a nation's outbreak really is. Yet many, if not most, states are failing to make the distinction...

Hospitals across the US are being inundated with COVID-19 patients, as the number of people admitted to intensive care units reaches alarming levels, new data shows. There were 129,748 people being cared for at hospitals for the virus Monday, according to the COVID Tracking Project. It marked the 41st consecutive day that COVID-19 hospitalizations had topped 100,000.

LAURENS, S.C. (WSPA) – City of Laurens Mayor Nathan Senn announced a healthcare emergency this week as Prisma Health Hospitals in the Upstate reach capacity, and said the National Guard has been called to assist what is becoming “a field medicine scenario.” In a recorded message, the mayor explained measures being taken at Laurens Hospital, saying the third floor has been converted to a surge area for COVID-19 patients to provide 29 extra beds. Workers are exploring other facilities to house patients, as critical care units are overflowing. “What we feared has now happened,” Senn said of hospitals being at...

When President Trump signed an executive order for healthcare price transparency last year, hospital lobbyists fumed. “Disclosing negotiated rates between insurers and hospitals could undermine the choices available in the private market,” American Hospital Association Executive Vice President Tom Nickels groused in anticipation of the order. “While we support transparency, this approach misses the mark.” Insurance-industry mouthpieces also demurred. David Balat, himself a former hospital executive, has strongly advocated requiring healthcare providers to disclose the prices they negotiate with insurance companies. The reasons for this are straightforward: American patients shouldn’t be kept waiting until after undergoing a medical procedure to...

Major hospital operators say they will comply with new rules to make public their prices for medical procedures starting Friday, exposing previously secret market rates in an industry that accounts for about 6% of the U.S. economy. The roughly $1.2 trillion hospital sector will begin posting prices publicly in the New Year after losing a legal challenge to overturn new transparency rules that are a centerpiece of the Trump administration’s health-care policy. Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar said earlier in December the hospital pricing data and other transparency rules put forward by the administration were fundamental to a...

Southern California hospitals, already overwhelmed by coronavirus patients, are now facing a new problem — a shortage of oxygen, according to a report. Officials say they’re having trouble getting the necessary amount of oxygen to critically ill coronavirus patients, with supply issues causing at least five Los Angeles County hospitals to declare an “internal disaster” on Sunday, which included turning away ambulances.

The State of California has officially reached “zero” percent in its intensive care unit (ICU) capacity as the state battles the nation’s worst coronavirus surge. The San Francisco Chronicle notes that the “0%” figure does not necessarily mean there are no beds available. Rather, it means that according to an algorithm used by the state, the maximum number of licensed ICU beds has been reached, and many hospitals are now using their “surge” capacity to accommodate additional patients.

Los Angeles area hospitals are at a breaking point due to the coronavirus pandemic in Southern California, where the mounting death toll has overwhelmed intensive care units and led to contingency plans for possibly rationing care. Though coronavirus hospitalizations are stabilizing in parts of California, patients are still overwhelming hospitals in a large swath of the state, leading California Gov. Gavin Newsom to warn that the state must brace for the effect of a “surge on top of a surge” from recent holiday travel.

LOS ANGELES — Hospitals in Los Angeles County are reporting a surge in COVID-19 patients and some have been forced to temporarily cease ambulance arrivals and use gift shops as makeshift treatment rooms, a report Tuesday said. The Los Angeles Times reported one person died from the virus every 10 minutes in the county on Christmas Eve.

Governor Andrew Cuomo told New Yorkers to brace for the possibility of an imminent shutdown, and Mayor Bill de Blasio urged city residents to work from home if possible, as coronavirus cases and hospitalizations continued to climb across the state. On Monday afternoon, hours after a Queens health care worker received the first COVID-19 vaccine in the country, Cuomo offered his most dire warning in months about a virus that once again threatens to push hospitals to the brink. "The increase in hospitalizations could overwhelm some regions if nothing changes by January," he said. "If we do not change the...

According to federal government data reported by Just The News, hospitals nationwide have 'considerable space left to deal with both routine medical issues and COVID-19 patients," dispelling fears of overwhelmed medical systems and at-capacity hospitals which have been promoted by the usual media suspects.For most of 2020, rising positive test results of COVID-19 have brought with them fears of swamped hospitals, overwhelmed medical systems, emergency patients being turned away, and COVID-19 patients being triaged, suffering and dying in hallways and vestibules. Much of that fear crystallized in the early stages of the pandemic, when parts of the northern Italian medical...

The federal investigation into President-elect Joe Biden’s son Hunter has been more extensive than a statement from Hunter Biden indicates, according to a person with firsthand knowledge of the investigation. In addition to Delaware, the securities fraud unit in the Southern District of New York also scrutinized Hunter Biden’s finances, according to the person with direct knowledge of the investigation. The person said that, as of early last year, investigators in Delaware and Washington were also probing potential money laundering and Hunter Biden’s foreign ties. The person spoke on the condition of anonymity because they are not authorized to discuss...

New York is dangerously close to overwhelming its hospital system with new COVID-19 cases — and preparing to recruit retired doctors and nurses to the front lines again, Gov. Andrew Cuomo said Monday. “It’s a new phase in the war against COVID,” Cuomo said — adding that daily coronavirus hospitalizations statewide are nearly quadruple what they were in June.

MADISON, Wis. — In response to the surging COVID-19 case numbers and hospitals being overwhelmed with incoming patients, Wisconsin Gov. Tony Evers issued a new emergency order and public face covering order on Friday for all residents over the age of five to wear coverings in all indoor settings, with some exceptions.

Dr. Michael Osterholm, a member of former Vice President Joe Biden’s coronavirus task force, predicted on Thursday that hospitals will be “collapsing in the next two to three weeks” due to spikes in coronavirus cases across the country. As many push the President Donald Trump administration to provide information regarding coronavirus cases to the Biden transition team, Osterholm emphasized the importance of someone in his position knowing “current information on the number of cases.”

The latest coronavirus numbers from the CDC raise more questions on the seriousness of the China virus. According to the CDC there were 26,557 heart attacks listed as Coronavirus deaths. ... And there were 7,919 accident and poisoning deaths listed as Coronavirus deaths. ... The CDC also revealed in their latest numbers that hospitals have been counting patients who died from serious preexisting conditions as COVID-19 deaths.

The latest numbers from the CDC reveal hospitals have been counting patients who died from serious preexisting conditions as COVID-19 deaths. One America’s Pearson Sharp has more, as the CDC counts over 51-thousand patients who actually died from heart attacks, as opposed to the coronavirus.

A group of physicians at a hospital in central Israel have accused the medical center’s coronavirus ward of failing to properly care for patients suffering from the coronavirus, claiming patients in serious condition have died from neglect. Nine doctors working in the coronavirus ward at Wolfson Medical Center in Holon have filed a joint complaint to the hospital’s management over its handling of coronavirus patients, Israel Hayom reported Monday morning. The nine doctors complained of a lack of medical equipment, malfunctioning respirators, chronic neglect and mishandling of coronavirus cases which led to patients in the coronavirus ward dying. The complaint...