Morning Briefing
Summaries of health policy coverage from major news organizations
More Verbal, Physical Attacks: Asian-American Health Care Workers Report Rise In Bigoted Incidents
The Washington Post: Asian American Doctors And Nurses Are Fighting Racism And The Coronavirus
Lucy Li tries not to let fear dictate her interactions with patients as she makes the rounds in the covid-19 intensive care unit. But the anesthesiology resident at Massachusetts General Hospital cannot erase the memory of what happened after work at the start of the pandemic. A man followed the Chinese American doctor from the Boston hospital, spewing a profanity-laced racist tirade as she walked to the subway. “Why are you Chinese people killing everyone?” Li recalled the man shouting. “What is wrong with you? Why the f--- are you killing us?” (Jan, 5/19)
The Washington Post: Why Is Coronavirus Hitting Britain’s Minority Doctors So Hard?
Adil el-Tayar was a distinguished renal transplant surgeon, originally from Sudan, who volunteered to attend to coronavirus patients in an emergency room. Within weeks, the 64-year-old was dead — the first doctor in Britain to succumb to the virus. “He was aware there was a risk,” his son Osman said. “But he didn’t believe it would affect him the way it did.” (Adam, 5/20)
The Washington Post: MedStar Employee Claims In Lawsuit She Was Fired For Tweeting About Hospital’s Lack Of Coronavirus Safety Precautions
A former employee at the MedStar Washington Hospital Center claims she was fired for raising red flags on social media about what she contends were a lack of safety precautions by the hospital against the spread of the novel coronavirus. According to a lawsuit filed Friday in D.C. Superior Court, Sarah Cusick’s social media posts also prompted the hospital’s management to ask her to remove tweets, which she did. (Swenson, 5/19)
Kaiser Health News/The Guardian: Lost On The Frontline
A memory care nurse who refused to let fear stop her from living. A pediatrician whose bond with his son informed his care for his patients. A volunteer firefighter with a quick sense of humor. These are some of the people just added to “Lost on the Frontline,” a special series from The Guardian and KHN that profiles health care workers who die of COVID-19. (5/20)
San Francisco Chronicle: San Francisco General Hospital Appeals State Workplace Safety Violations
San Francisco General Hospital has appealed seven violations cited against it by the state’s workplace safety watchdog agency, arguing this week that administrators need more information to respond to reputation-damaging findings that they failed to protect emergency department staff. The agency, Cal/OSHA, fined the hospital $26,660 on April 23 for workplace safety violations, including retaliating against workers who complained about dangerous conditions. The hospital administrators’ appeal demanded more details to defend themselves and criticized the state agency for neglecting to give enough time for them to meaningfully review their response to allegations. (Moench, 5/19)
