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You may want to think twice come November 1st if you are considering visiting a local emergency room owned and operated by Memorial.

Starting November 1st, patients determined to have conditions that are not medical emergencies will be required to pay their insurance co-pay or pay a $200 deposit toward the cost of care for non-urgent care in the emergency room.
Those with non-urgent medical issues will be steered to one of Memorial’s walk in clinics for care.

This was just announced by Memorial today in an effort to relieve congestion and wait times in its emergency rooms in South Mississippi.

An unborn baby kicked so hard it tore a hole in her mum’s womb, nearly killing them both.

The woman, known only as Zhang, was just 35 weeks pregnant, but doctors at the Peking University Shenzhen Hospital had to act quickly after she arrived at the hospital with stomach pains.

The mum was experiencing extreme pain and had problems with her blood pressure, pulse and breathing, doctors wrote in a social media post.

At first, specialists thought her womb had been ruptured so performed an ultrasound and what they found was surprising.

It showed that the baby had “kicked through” the uterus wall into the mum’s abdominal cavity. Doctors said the tiny baby’s thighs were stuck.

They delivered the baby via an emergency caesarean-section in order to stop the mother’s blood loss and prevent the baby from contracting a life-threatening infection.

It took surgeons Zhang Lei, Zhang Yanping and Zhong Shilin just 10 minutes to safely deliver the little girl, saving her and her mother from death.

Doctors said the woman had a 7-centimetre “break” in her womb wall as a result of her unborn baby’s kicks.

After examining the woman’s medical history, it was discovered the mum previously had fibroids removed from her womb. That operation had resulted in a womb scar, leaving a weak spot on her uterus’ wall.

It is not uncommon for women to experience a complete rupture when a tear occurs, typically at the site of an old caesarean-section scar, but is less common for it to occur prior to going into labour.

Doctors said both mum and baby were doing well, despite the traumatic events surrounding the little girl’s birth.

Salt Lake City, UT – Salt Lake City Police Chief Mike Brown made a decision on Tuesday to fire Detective Jeff Payne for the arrest of nurse Alex Wubbels on July 26.

An investigation determined that nurse Wubbels was unlawfully arrested after Detective Payne was ordered by Lt. James Tracy to arrest Wubbels if she failed to co-operate with a blood draw.

It became apparent that neither Detective Payne or Lt. Tracy were familiar with current case law concerning blood draws based on implied consent.

Gov. Jerry Brown signed a bill Friday that lowers from a felony to a misdemeanor the crime of knowingly exposing a sexual partner to HIV without disclosing the infection.

The measure also applies to those who give blood without telling the blood bank that they are HIV-positive.

Modern medicine allows those with HIV to live longer lives and nearly eliminates the possibility of transmission, according to state Sen. Scott Wiener (D-San Francisco) and Assemblyman Todd Gloria (D-San Diego), authors of the bill.

“Today California took a major step toward treating HIV as a public health issue, instead of treating people living with HIV as criminals,” Wiener said in a statement. “HIV should be treated like all other serious infectious diseases, and that’s what SB 239 does.”

Supporters of the change said the current law requires an intent to transmit HIV to justify a felony, but others noted cases have been prosecuted where there was no physical contact, so there was an argument intent was lacking.

Brown declined to comment on his action.

HIV has been the only communicable disease for which exposure is a felony under California law. The current law, Wiener argued, may convince people not to be tested for HIV, because without a test they cannot be charged with a felony if they expose a partner to the infection.

“We are going to end new HIV infections, and we will do so not by threatening people with state prison time, but rather by getting people to test and providing them access to care,” Wiener said.

Supporters of the bill said women engaging in prostitution are disproportionately targeted with criminal charges, even in cases where the infection is not transmitted.

Republican lawmakers including Sen. Joel Anderson of Alpine voted against the bill, arguing it puts the public at risk.

“I’m of the mind that if you purposefully inflict another with a disease that alters their lifestyle the rest of their life, puts them on a regimen of medications to maintain any kind of normalcy, it should be a felony,” Anderson said during the floor debate. “It’s absolutely crazy to me that we should go light on this.”

Anderson said the answer could be to extend tougher penalties to those who expose others to other infectious diseases.

MILWAUKEE — Prosecutors allege a Milwaukee woman killed her 4-year-old son by setting him on fire in a bathtub in their apartment.

Amelia DiStasio, 23, faces a charge of first-degree intentional homicide. She remains jailed with bail set at $400,000.

According to the complaint, authorities were called about smoke at DiStasio’s south side apartment Thursday morning and found her son Antonio’s burned and lifeless body in the bathtub. His hands had been bound behind his back with several belts, and a plastic garbage bag was over his head. An open bottle of cooking oil was in the bathroom.

According to WTMJ, the night before the fire, the criminal complaint said a neighbor heard the child say, “Please mommy, stop! I won’t do it again!” She heard Distasio yell, “Shut up!”

The mother was not home. A witness says she saw DiStasio climb out of the apartment window and run away.

A police officer later found DiStasio walking. It’s unclear if she has an attorney.

RICHMOND — The Indiana attorney general’s office is seeking disciplinary action against the license of a nurse who admitted diverting $72,000 worth of opioids from Reid Health hospital.

The registered nurse, Michelle Hibbard, 43, allegedly was caught with nine vials of opioid pain medication while on duty at the hospital, which declined comment for this article.

According to an administrative complaint, the hospital’s administrative coordinator on Jan. 7 confronted Hibbard after receiving a complaint that she had pulled several doses of fentanyl and dilaudid that were never administered to patients.

Asked to empty the pockets of her scrubs, Hibbard produced seven vials containing fentanyl and hydromorphone, according to the complaint. She also reportedly admitted that she had consumed another vial of fentanyl by squirting it into her mouth.

In addition, a strip search uncovered a blister pack containing a hydromorphone tablet, a tourniquet, a needle and two vials of hydromorphone in her underwear, according to the complaint.

The Richmond nurse reportedly admitted diverting and intravenously using drugs from the hospital for nearly half a year — at a rate of between one and 10 doses of pain medication a day.

Hospital records showed that she stole nearly 900 units of medication valued at about $72,000.

Hibbard, who declined comment for this story, has entered a three-year recovery monitoring agreement with the Indiana State Nurses Assistance Program (ISNAP).

In August, Hibbard pleaded guilty to felony drug and theft charges, for which she received probation and a suspended sentence of 547 days in prison. The next day, the attorney general filed a complaint asking the state board of nursing to impose disciplinary sanctions against Hibbard’s license. The case remains pending.

Reid Health referred questions for this article to law enforcement.

“I think the opioid crisis is getting worse, according to all of the statistics, but we have not seen an increase in the number of nurses referred,” ISNAP program director Chuck Lindquist told The Star Press. “We are currently monitoring over 400 nurses, and we have 70 in intake. Obviously, that’s less than 1 percent of folks with Indiana nursing licenses.”

There are about 140,000 nurses in Indiana, he said, and it is estimated that at least 10 percent are addicted to alcohol or other drugs. “That means 14,000 nurses are … possibly struggling with addiction, and we’re seeing only 500 of them,” Lindquist said. “There are some nurses in the throes of addiction that we just don’t hear about until they’re caught diverting or coming to the work place impaired.”

In the past year, ISNAP intakes actually decreased to 241 compared to 297 the previous year. “We have seen a bit of an increase in the use of heroin over the past 12 to 18 months,” Lindquist said. “But if overall opioid use is getting worse, we’re not getting additional referrals as a result. Most of our nurses are referred through their employer or the attorney general.”

MARQUETTE, MI – Nurses hit the picket lines outside the Upper Peninsula’s largest hospital early Thursday morning.

They say they’re striking over patient safety issues – including 12 to 16-hour shifts in some areas of the hospital that nurses say are overworking the staff and putting critical patient care at risk.

The 48-hour strike is to end on Saturday morning, according to The Keweenaw Report.

The last round of negotiations between the Michigan Nurses Association and the UP Health System-Marquette ended Wednesday night with no agreement.

The hospital has said temporary nurses will fill in for the striking staff, according to media reports.

A Metro Detroit mother has been ordered to serve seven days in jail after failing to follow an Oakland County Judge’s orders to vaccinate her 9-year-old son.

The Associated Press reports Rebecca Bredow was jailed on Wednesday, Oct. 4 after violating an agreement to have her and her ex-husband’s son vaccinated. Judge Karen McDonald ruled that the father “gets a say” in the situation, even though Bredow is the primary caregiver.

Last week, Bredow told Detroit-area TV station WXYZ that the judge ordered her to vaccinate her son within the week or she would go to jail. The woman said the situation stemmed from an agreement with her ex-husband to space out and delay some of the vaccines, but that the vaccinations started to get grouped together.

“I would rather sit behind bars for standing up for what I believe in, than giving into something I strongly don’t believe in,” she explained during the interview with WXYZ. “God forbid he were to be injured by one of the vaccines, then what, that’s what scares me.

The Ferndale woman told McDonald she takes “full responsibility,” but that vaccinations go against what she believes in and that she regrets not raising the issue sooner. A.P. reports the judge reminded the woman that she agreed to the immunizations as a response.

In Michigan, parents are allowed to get a vaccination waiver for medical, religious or philosophical issues. The allowance of “philosophical” waivers makes Michigan one of 20 states to have an option out of vaccinations for reasons other than religious or medical reasons.

“I feel backed into a corner, I feel my rights as a parent have been taken away,” Bredow said during the TV interview last week.

“Every parent has a choice, but we also have a right to have our voices heard, so why automatically side with the father who wants the vaccines?”

Child immunization rates in Michigan are among the worst in the U.S. with a ranking of 43rd lower for children between the ages of 19 and 35 months. State law requires each student in public, private and parochial schools to possess a certificate of immunization for admittance into kindergarten, seventh grade or a new school district.

Back in 2015, lawmakers in the state required parents seeking a waiver to meet with a county health professional. A form is then signed with the parent’s statement of acknowledgment they could be putting other people’s kids at risk by refusing vaccinations.

Abu Dhabi: Nearly 2,000 more nurses, midwives and allied health professionals are expected to be hired over the next year for positions in public health-care facilities, health officials said in the capital on Wednesday.

The new recruits will help the emirate’s public health-care provider, the Abu Dhabi Health Services Company (Seha), meet international nurse-to-patient ratios, said Aisha Al Mahri, allied health group director at Seha Nursing, told Gulf News.

“The demand for health care is continuing to grow in Abu Dhabi, and one of our strategic goals includes keeping up with international nurse-to-patient ratios. We have already hired 1,000 new nurses, midwives and allied health professionals over the last year, and we aim to employ the rest by 2018,” Al Mahri said.

She was speaking on the sidelines of the sixth Seha International Nursing, Midwifery and Allied Health Conference in the capital, which saw the attendance of 1,250 officials and professionals from the health sector.

According to details revealed at the conference, the Seha network currently includes 13 hospitals, 41 primary care centres, two blood banks, 11 preventive medicine centres, three mobile clinics and a school health-care centre. The facilities boast 7,000 nurses and midwives, and 2,000 allied health professionals like dietitians, technicians and radiologists.

International standards on nurse-to-patient ratios depend on the field of care. For instance, there should be one purse per critical patient for critical care, and one nurse for every two children, Dr Al Mahri said.

But apart from the nurse-to-patient ratio targets, the need for more medical professionals in Seha has arisen from the fact that skills and requirements among nurses are also shifting.

“In the past, nurses would work across departments to serve patients. Now, however, nursing has become a more specialised field, brought about by the growth and establishment of specialist hospitals. For example, Abu Dhabi has a number of hospitals specialised in providing maternity care, and others that prioritise trauma services or cardiovascular care. These facilities need nurses who are themselves adept at providing specialised care,” she said.

According to the official, the biggest need for specialist nurses is within the fields of critical care, surgery, emergency medicine, renal care, midwifery and mental health. To that end, the health-care provider already has eight training programmes to help both new and experienced nurses develop these new skills.

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A 29-year-old man named Sonny Melton was shot and killed at the Route 91 Harvest festival after shielding his wife, Heather Melton, from the bullets.

“He saved my life. He grabbed me and started running when I felt him get shot in the back,” Heather told local Nashville news outlet News 4. “I want everyone to know what a kind-hearted, loving man he was, but at this point, I can barely breathe.”

The couple lived in Big Sandy, Tennessee, where Sonny worked as a registered nurse in an emergency room and ICU at Henry County Medical Center. Heather, who is a surgeon, also works at the hospital and Sonny would aid her in the operating room.

Sonny’s family confirmed his death on Monday.

As previously reported, gunman Stephen Paddock opened fire on the crowd of 30,000 concertgoers from the 32nd floor of the Mandalay Bay Resort and Casino. More than 50 people were killed and over 500 injured.

The attack marks the deadliest mass shooting in modern U.S. history.