Morning Briefing
Summaries of health policy coverage from major news organizations
Inoculated Health Workers Say They Feel Profound Relief, Are Optimistic
The Washington Post: After Months Of Trauma, Vaccinated Health-Care Workers Welcome A Surprising Emotion: Hope
For weeks, the long-term care facility where Linda Green works as a nurse looked to her like a battlefield hospital, swathed in plastic drapes separating the ill from the uninfected. The coronavirus ripped through the western Maryland facility like wildfire at the end of 2020, deepening Green’s fear that she, at 73, might bring the virus home to her husband, who is 84.Then she received a coronavirus shot. It felt like any other vaccination, leaving her with mild upper arm soreness but no other physical side effects. The emotional effects, however, were remarkable. Even thinking of the vaccine, Green said two weeks after receiving the Moderna shot, makes her practically “cry with relief” as she pictures a brighter future for herself and those she cares for. (Brulliard, 1/18)
The Hill: Health Workers Refusing Vaccine Is New Growing US Problem
Scores of health care workers are still declining to take the COVID-19 vaccine, presenting problems to the pandemic response by sending the wrong message to the public and risking staff shortages if workers become sick. It’s all happening as a more contagious variant of the virus begins spreading in the U.S. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) on Friday warned this strain could be the dominant one hitting the United States by March. (Hellmann, 1/18)
The New York Times: Some Medical Students Wait In Line For Covid Vaccine, While Others Share Selfies Of Shots
In early January, Nali Gillespie watched her social media feeds fill with vaccine selfies: Photo after photo of her peers at other medical schools around the country posed proudly next to a syringe with their dose of either the Moderna or Pfizer Covid-19 vaccine. But Ms. Gillespie — who is in her third year at Duke University School of Medicine and is focused on research rather than clinical training — knew she wouldn’t be able to join them yet. (Goldberg, 1/14)
Philadelphia Inquirer: COVID-19 Vaccine Rules Spark Confusion For Some In Philly. Others Are Jumping The Line
A partnership between Rite Aid and the City of Philadelphia, intended to help get the vaccine to health-care workers, has enabled ineligible people to jump the line and get protection ahead of that top-priority group, called 1a, which is at high risk of exposure to the coronavirus. Complaints “are coming to us from all angles that these [Rite Aid vaccine scheduling links] are being shared and people are using them even when they aren’t in 1a,” James Garrow, spokesperson for the Philadelphia Department of Public Health, said Friday. (McCullough, 1/17)
In related news about health care personnel —
AP: Exhausted Hospital Chaplains Bring Solace To Lonely, Dying
Inside hospital rooms across America, where the sick are alone without family to comfort them, the grim task of offering solace falls to overworked and emotionally drained hospital chaplains who are dealing with more death than they’ve ever seen. Last week nearly a dozen died on a single day at the 377-bed Providence Holy Cross Medical Center, a gleaming, modern medical facility that is tucked into the northwest corner of Los Angeles’ San Fernando Valley. Three more passed — within a span of 45 minutes — the next day. (Rogers, 1/19)
AP: Military Nurses, Tests Coming To Help Hard-Hit Arizona City
Exhausted nurses in rural Yuma, Arizona, regularly send COVID-19 patients on a long helicopter ride to Phoenix when they don’t have enough staff. The so-called winter lettuce capital of the U.S. also has lagged on coronavirus testing in heavily Hispanic neighborhoods and just ran out of vaccines. But some support is coming from military nurses and a new wave of free tests for farmworkers and the elderly in Yuma County — the hardest-hit county in one of the hardest-hit states. (Snow, 1/18)
Houston Chronicle: Job Offers Of Up To $12,000 A Week Lure Houston Nurses To COVID-19 Hot Spots
The recruitment goes over much better with the hospitals that hire the nurses than those who lose them. Hospital associations across the nation report receiving many complaints from member institutions about agencies “poaching” their staff. One hospital spokesman compares the landscape to one in which vendors hawked exorbitantly priced bottled water after Hurricane Harvey. Texas has indeed become one of the hottest destinations for nurse recruiting. Krucial, which in the spring led the effort to bring nurses to New York, is now focused on Texas, exemplified by recent travel job advertisements on its Facebook page for a Texas gig. Methodist reports a significant increase in nurses taking such offers in December. (Ackerman, 1/16)
The Seattle Times: COVID-19 Contact Tracers In Spokane Are Now Trained To Give Mental Health Assistance
Calling to tell someone they have tested positive for the novel coronavirus is like being a bearer of bad news over and over again. In recent months, those calls have been met with more strained responses, especially around the holidays, where a positive test result could mean winter holidays alone or even isolated from members of one’s immediate household. That work is done on a daily basis by workers at the Spokane Regional Health District and the Public Health Institute, which the district contracted with to support its contact-tracing efforts earlier in the pandemic. By the end of November, the Public Health Institute prepared for the combination of both seasonal depression and depression brought on by the pandemic’s disillusionment phase, and trained all of its workers in mental health first aid. (Dreher, 1/18)
In other news —
Stat: Family Medicine Residents Are Interacting With Pharma Less, Analysis Finds
Amid concerns about pharmaceutical industry influence on physicians, a new survey finds fewer family medicine residents are interacting with drug makers over the past dozen years. A growing majority of residency programs report that their residents are not allowed to accept food, gifts, or product samples, that they have limited the access that sales reps have to residents, and that they do not permit activities sponsored by drug companies. (Silverman, 1/19)
