Morning Briefing
Summaries of health policy coverage from major news organizations
Chinese Hospital Told Woman She Had To Pay Charges Before She Was Allowed To See Her Twin Babies
The New York Times: Want To See Your Baby? In China, It Can Cost You
A day after Juliana Brandy Logbo gave birth to twins this month through an emergency cesarean section in a Chinese hospital, she thought the worst was over. Then the demands for money began. First, Ms. Logbo said, the hospital told her that she had to pay $630 in hospitalization fees if she wanted to see her girls. Three days later, she said, the amount rose to nearly $800. She didn’t have the money. The demands left her weeping outside the newborn department in the hospital. (Wee, 5/22)
The New York Times: For First Time, W.H.O. Names Some Lab Tests ‘Essential’
For the first time, the World Health Organization has published a list of diagnostic tests that it considers essential to every health care system in the world. The list, published Wednesday, is similar to the agency’s essential medicines list, which the W.H.O. launched in 1977. In its day, the medicines list was revolutionary because it was both a global guide to rational treatment regimens and because it fostered the idea that certain medicines were so important that they should be available to the whole world, regardless of price. (McNeil, 5/21)
The Hill: Ebola Vaccine Reaches Congo As Death Count Grows
A massive vaccination campaign began in Congo on Monday in an effort to stem an outbreak of the Ebola virus that has spread for more than a month. The World Health Organization (WHO) and a nongovernmental organization that delivers vaccines, Gavi, said Monday that more than 7,500 doses of a new vaccine had been deployed to the Equator Province. (Wilson, 5/21)
Stat: Scientists Who Toiled On Ebola Vaccine Watch As Their Work Is Put To The Test
An Ebola outbreak has once again commanded global attention, eliciting feelings of dread, anxiety, and concern. But for a small community of researchers who have toiled for years to develop a vaccine against Ebola — one that is being used for the first time to try to contain an outbreak — it is also thrilling. These scientists take no joy in knowing as they do the devastation that the virus can wreak. But after years of frustration with the global response to Ebola outbreaks — and a sense of helplessness in the face of so much misery — they see what’s happening now in the Democratic Republic of the Congo as a possible watershed moment, one that could forever shape the way in which health officials respond to Ebola epidemics. (Branswell, 5/22)
