AllHealthcare

CHATTANOOGA, Tenn. - Thousands of veterans were at first shocked to learn they should get blood tests for HIV and hepatitis because three hospitals might have treated them with unsterile equipment. Now, just a couple of months after the Department of Veterans Affairs issued the dire warnings, veterans are growing frustrated by the lack of information from the tightlipped federal agency. ...

Britain's next generation of midwives is being bullied by senior nurses with a 'gang culture' mentality, a new survey has found. Student midwives say they are belittled and shouted at in front of staff if they ask for help - and that the abuse is ruining their self-esteem and confidence. More than half those questioned in the survey said they had ...

WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. - Police were looking into possible criminal charges against a nurse at a South Florida hospital where officials say she may have exposed more than 1,800 patients to HIV and hepatitis by reusing medical supplies. Officials at Broward General Medical Center in Fort Lauderdale said earlier this week the hospital discovered that Qui Lan, 59, was reusing ...

ATLANTA – Health officials are investigating a salmonella outbreak that reportedly has sickened nearly 400 people in 42 states, but they do not yet know exactly how the bacteria has been spreading. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has not named all the states, but Ohio health officials have reported at least 50 people in 18 counties have been ...

TRENTON, N.J. (AP) — A New Jersey doctor whom health officials suspect was the source of a hepatitis B outbreak had his medical license suspended indefinitely on Wednesday by state regulators. Nearly 3,000 of Dr. Parvez Dara's patients have been warned to get tested after five cancer patients tested positive for the disease, which is transmitted through exposure to infected blood ...

SOUTH SAN FRANCISCO, Calif. - The Genentech unit of drugmaker Roche Holding AG is pulling the psoriasis treatment Raptiva off the U.S. market because of links to an often fatal brain infection. The move comes only about six months after the company updated the drug's labeling to carry warnings of links to a rare nervous system disorder called progressive multifocal leukoencephalopathy, ...

The nation's largest group of emergency doctors this afternoon is condemning a University of Chicago Medical Center initiative to divert patients from its emergency room saying it was "dangerously close" to violating federal laws. The American College of Emergency Physicians said the University of Chicago Medical Center is "failing in its obligation to treat emergency patients, citing drastic reductions in inpatient ...

WASHINGTON - Federal authorities indicted 53 people on Wednesday for schemes to cheat Medicare out of $50 million. Suspects were arrested in Detroit, Miami, and Denver as part of a wide-ranging effort by the government to crack down on those allegedly defrauding the government-funded health care program for the elderly and disabled. Attorney General Eric Holder, Health and Human Services Secretary ...

Three Orlando health-care workers pampered themselves with lavish trips and a baby shower using $200,000 from Medicaid, the Office of the Attorney General of Florida said. Investigators said Tammy Lee Scarborough, owner of Building a Community Connection (BCC), and employee Sharon D. Smith submitted fraudulent reimbursement claims to Medicaid for services they never provided to disabled clients. Kathy Marinelli, a coordinator ...

NEW YORK – The California fertility doctor who implanted the octuplet mom with lots of embryos was no lone wolf: Fewer than 20 percent of U.S. clinics follow professional guidelines on how many embryos should be used for younger women. "Clearly, most programs are not adhering to the guidelines," said Dr. Bradley Van Voorhis, director of the fertility clinic at the ...

A nurse in Brunswick Community Hospital maternity ward was arrested Wednesday on drug charges, according to a news release from the Brunswick County Sheriff's Office. Staci Avery Wood of Southport, N.C. was charged with two felonies: trafficking amphetamines and obtaining a controlled substance through fraud/forgery/subterfuge, and two misdemeandors: possession of a schedule II controlled substance and possession of drug paraphernalia, the ...

AUSTIN, Texas – By the tens of thousands, Texas student-athletes have been pulled out of class to urinate in a cup for the nation's largest high school steroids testing program. Boys and girls in all sports, from football to tennis to cross country, have been randomly selected. The results so far have found little to confirm fears that steroid use is ...

Family members of an elderly woman who died after she went missing from UPMC Montefiore in Oakland plan to sue, their attorney said. "The family's intentions are to make sure this never happens again," said Downtown attorney Rob Peirce. "Right now, they literally are stunned by her passing, the nature of her passing, and they would like a few days to ...

It was the middle of the night, and Laura Silverthorn, a nurse at a hospital in Washington, knew her patient was in danger...

BRUSSELS - Five people working for humanitarian aid group Doctors Without Borders' Belgian office were kidnapped in Sudan's Darfur region, officials said Thursday, a week after the government in Khartoum ordered the expulsion of aid groups as a response to the International Criminal Court's decision to indict the president. A spokesman for Doctors Without Borders' Belgian office, Koen Baetens, confirmed the ...

ROME—Italian police say they have arrested 70 nurses and hospital attendants who allegedly got jobs in hospitals by using fake medical diplomas. Police in Naples say the suspects, some of whom had been practicing since 1975, bought the fake diplomas from an organized crime group for up to euro15,000 ($19,000). The suspects, who worked in Italy's southern Calabria region, were placed ...

SAN ANTONIO - An Air Force nurse has been charged with murder for allegedly giving lethal amounts of medication to three terminally ill patients in his care over one month last summer, military officials said Tuesday. Capt. Michael Fontana, 35, was formally charged Monday by the Air Force with deliberately giving three Wilford Hall Medical Center patients lethal amounts of medication, ...

CAIRO - The poverty of Cairo's slums forced a young couple to sell nearly everything they had. When that wasn't enough, each of them sold a kidney. The clandestine pre-dawn operation in a small private hospital ended with the man and wife being dumped semiconscious in taxis - the payment for their kidneys tucked into their clothes, they say. Now, a ...

NEW HAVEN, Conn. -- Raymond Clark III appeared in court and was charged with murder Thursday hours after his arrest in the killing of a graduate student whose body was found stuffed in the wall of the research building where they both worked. Raymond Clark III, 24, kept his head bowed during the three-minute appearance in the death of Annie Le, ...

ALBANY, N.Y. (AP) — Four hospitals in New York state paid kickbacks to get more patients into their drug treatment programs, which billed Medicaid for services that weren't standard or necessary and lacked state certification, lawsuits allege. Another hospital paid people to search homeless shelters and other places for patients to enter a three-day stay in detox in exchange for cigarettes, ...