State Highlights: Several Thousand Eggs, Embryos Compromised At Calif. Fertility Center; Lawsuit Of La. Inmates Cites Inadequate Medical Care

The Washington Post: Fertility Clinic Informs Hundreds Of Patients Their Eggs May Have Been Damaged
A long-established San Francisco fertility clinic experienced a liquid nitrogen failure in a storage tank holding thousands of frozen eggs and embryos for future use, jeopardizing tissue hundreds of women had stored in hopes of having children. The March 4 incident at Pacific Fertility Clinic, acknowledged Sunday by the facility’s president, followed a similar malfunction the same weekend at an unrelated clinic in Cleveland, the University Hospitals Fertility Center. (Goldstein, 3/11)

NPR: Angola Prison Inmates Sue In Class-Action Suit For What They Call Substandard Medical Care
In 2005, Francis Brauner was a quarter of the way through a 20-year prison sentence at Dixon Correctional Institute in Louisiana, when he had an accident. Brauner was imprisoned for a rape conviction, which he maintains was wrongful and part of a setup by a corrupt judge. His sentence involved hard labor, and one day he was out in the fields, cutting the grass and he bent over to pick something up from the ground. He felt a sharp pain in his back. (Aronczyk and Quandt, 3/10)

The Associated Press: Officials Tight-Lipped In Attack On California Veterans Home
Authorities in Northern California have so far been tight-lipped about why a former Army rifleman may have killed three women after a daylong siege at a veterans home in Napa County wine country. Albert Wong, 36, slipped into a going-away party for two employees of The Pathway Home on the campus of the Yountville veterans home campus about 50 miles north of San Francisco on Friday, then let some people leave, but kept the three women. (3/12)

PBS NewsHour: Mississippi Could Soon Be The Only State To Ban Abortion After 15 Weeks
Mississippi could soon ban abortion after 15 weeks of gestation, the earliest of any state nationwide. Critics say the new law, which Gov. Phil Bryant is expected to sign, could set up a Supreme Court showdown over the 40-year-old landmark Roe v. Wade case that gave women in the United States the legal right to have abortions. (Santhanam, 3/9)

KCUR: New Boss Promising Kansas Child Protection Agency Will Change For The Better 
The new head of Kansas’ troubled child welfare agency got a unanimous vote of confidence from a legislative committee Friday. Even the agency's staunchest critics think Gina Meier-Hummel will sail through a confirmation vote from the full Senate to head the Department for Children and Families. (Mclean, 3/9)

Pioneer Press: Minneapolis City Council Passes Measure Promoting Fast-Track End To AIDS 
Minneapolis became the first city in Minnesota to sign a declaration aiming to end the HIV epidemic. Mayor Jacob Frey and Minneapolis City Council members signed the Paris Declaration on Fast-Track Cities Ending AIDS on Friday. The initiative was launched in 2014 on World AIDS Day in Paris in an effort to educate people living with HIV, as well as decrease stigma and discrimination. (Schmidt, 3/9)

Arizona Republic: State Imposes Limits On Arizona State Hospital Human-Rights Committee
The Arizona Department of Health Services has reined in an Arizona State Hospital volunteer committee after a legal review concluded the committee violated its authority. The state health department's legal review found that human rights committee members "blurred the lines" between committee work and personal advocacy, ADHS Director Cara Christ said in a Feb. 13 letter to committee members. (Alltucker, 3/9)

San Francisco Chronicle: Laura’s Law Is Helping Many — But Still Only Making A Dent In SF
Remember Laura’s Law, the program to compel treatment of mentally ill people that the Board of Supervisors bickered about for four years? It finally passed in 2014 and took effect in November 2015. ...Those who received care through Laura’s Law were less likely to wind up in the psychiatric emergency room at San Francisco General Hospital than they were before treatment, less likely to be hospitalized and less likely to be jailed. (Knight, 3/9)

Denver Post: Glenwood Springs’ Valley View Hospital Opts In To Colorado’s Aid-In-Dying Act
Valley View Hospital in Glenwood Springs will now participate in Colorado’s End-of-Life Options Act, after taking a year to seek some clarity in the state’s rule-making process that governs how the law is to be implemented. Valley View and other area hospitals, including Grand River Health in Rifle and Aspen Valley Hospital, took a wait-and-see approach after the law, which gives terminally ill patients the right to pursue life-ending options, was passed by voters in November 2016. (Stroud, 3/9)

Detroit Free Press: Michigan Medicine: Exclusive U-M Medical Plan Buys You 'Better' Care
Michigan Medicine — the health system owned by the University of Michigan — is drawing fire from its own staff over a plan to offer personalized service, reduced waiting times and preferential access to physicians for a hefty yearly fee. The plan, part of the growing nationwide movement known as concierge care, is drawing protests from U-M doctors who are concerned it strays from the institution's public mission. The program is currently enrolling patients. (Jesse, 3/9)

Cleveland Plain Dealer: Anthem's New ER Policy Has Area Patients, Medical Professionals Worried About Emergencies
Anthem Blue Cross Blue Shield's new policy on emergency room visits shifts the responsibility of diagnosing medical emergencies to the patient, those in Ohio medical associations say, leaving patients afraid to visit the ER and not have it covered. The new policy, which went into effect Jan. 1 in Ohio, allows the insurer to decline claims in Ohio for emergency room visits it considers non-emergency. (Christ, 3/11)

Kansas City Star: KC Has Three Five-Star Hospitals
The Kansas City area now has three five-star hospitals, according to Medicare. ...But some say the government rating system is still unfairly penalizing hospitals with low-income patients. (Marso, 3/10)

San Jose Mercury News: Stuck In Limbo, DACA Recipients Consumed By Fear And Anxiety
As the latest deadlines to salvage the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrival program passed with no action this month — and U.S. Attorney Jeff Sessions announced the Trump Administration is suing California over its sanctuary laws — the chronic sense of foreboding among immigrants across the Bay Area is taking its emotional toll. ... Mental health experts and advocates say the fears and uncertainties plaguing undocumented immigrants and their families are causing “toxic stress” that can have long-term health effects, including problems sleeping and eating, headaches, vomiting, depression and anxiety. (Sanchez, 3/9)

Denver Post: 37 People In Six Colorado Counties Sickened By Salmonella Since Mid-February After Eating Burrito Delight
Weld County public health investigators believe an outbreak of salmonella linked to food made by Burrito Delight has peaked with 37 confirmed cases. There have been no new cases reported in the last five days. The foodborne illness was first reported in mid-February, when 17 people who ate food catered by Burrito Delight at two events on the Aims Community College campus in Greeley got sick. Thirteen people became sick after eating at Burrito Delight in Fort Lupton and another seven became ill after eating food they carried out from the restaurant. (3/9)

The Washington Post: Nursing Assistants Accused Of Sex With Patients From Psychiatric And Substance Abuse Center
Two nursing assistants have been accused of engaging in sexual relations with two patients from a psychiatric and substance abuse treatment center in Iowa. The Fayette County Sheriff's Office said in a statement that the certified nursing assistants, who were identified by authorities as Paige Lynn Johanningmeier and Megan Marie Penney, developed a relationship with two patients at the Prairie View Management facility in Fayette, a small town about 70 miles north of Cedar Rapids. (Bever, 3/9)

Boston Globe: Judge Dismisses Bermuda’s Bribery Lawsuit Against Lahey Clinic
A federal judge has dismissed a lawsuit brought by the Bermuda government, which accused Lahey Hospital and Medical Center of paying bribes to gain health care business on the island. ...Bermuda, despite having a small population of about 65,000, is an attractive market for American hospitals, partly because it’s close by — just about a two-hour flight from Boston.he British territory from 2006 to 2010. (Kowalczyk, 3/9)

Detroit Free Press: Henry Ford Health Partners With SPLT, Lyft On Patient Appointments
Improving health-care outcomes can sometimes simply mean getting patients to their appointments. Last month, Henry Ford Health System launched a pilot project with Detroit-based startup SPLT and the ride-hailing company Lyft in hopes of doing just that. The health system has partnered with the two services in an effort to get patients in the hospital's dialysis access center to their appointments. The health system uses the SPLT scheduling platform to coordinate trips to the hospital on Grand Boulevard in Detroit. (Lawrence, 3/10)

San Francisco Chronicle: Deaths Of Homeless People Go Uncounted In Oakland — And Most Places
Like many local governments, Alameda County does not collect data on how many homeless people die each year or their causes of death. Even if it did, neither the state nor federal government tracks such data — or requires that it be collected. (Veklerov, 3/10)