State Highlights: After Complaints About Heart Surgeries, N.C. Hospital Reported To Be In Compliance; Florida Appeals Court Backs 24-Hour Abortion Waiting Period

The New York Times: North Carolina Hospital Found Compliant But ‘Significantly Different’ After Complaints
Regulators have determined that North Carolina Children’s Hospital is in compliance with federal rules but markedly changed since doctors, department heads and a top administrator expressed concerns three years ago about patients undergoing heart surgery there. Inspection records released on Thursday cited no deficiencies with the hospital’s operations. But a spokesman for the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, which oversaw an investigation with the state health agency, said the institution’s heart surgery program “is significantly different than it was during 2016-17.” (Gabler, 8/1)

Miami Herald: Florida Court Overturns Ruling On Abortion Waiting Period
In a victory for Republican state leaders and abortion opponents, a split appeals court Thursday overturned a circuit judge’s decision that tossed out a 2015 law requiring women to wait 24 hours before having abortions. The 2-1 decision by a panel of the First District Court of Appeal sends the case back to Leon County circuit court. The 24-hour waiting period case could eventually become a key test for the Florida Supreme Court, which has historically backed abortion rights but is now dominated by conservative justices. (Saunders and Kam, 8/1)

The Associated Press: New Jersey's Medically Assisted Suicide Law Takes Effect
A New Jersey law allowing terminally ill patients to seek life-ending drugs went into effect Thursday. Democratic Gov. Phil Murphy had signed the bill in April, making New Jersey the seventh state with such a measure. Maine enacted a similar law in June, becoming the eighth. The Medical Aid in Dying for the Terminally Ill Act in New Jersey allows only patients who are terminally ill and have a prognosis of six months or less to live to acquire medication to end their lives. (8/1)

Miami Herald: Florida’s Hepatitis A Outbreak Is Public Health Emergency
With 56 new cases of Hepatitis A reported statewide in the week since the last reporting period, the Florida Surgeon General declared a public health emergency on Thursday, allowing health officials to test and treat people suspected of carrying the virus. ...The number of reported Hepatitis A cases in Florida in 2019 rose to 2,034 as of July 27, up from the 1,978 cases reported on July 20, the Florida Department of Health said. (Padro Ocasio, 8/2)

Los Angeles Times: California Has The Most Homeless People Of Any State. But L.A. Is Still A National Model
With tens of thousands of homeless people living on the streets, Los Angeles officials have increasingly found themselves as the subject of criticism for what many Angelenos see as a failure to keep up with a problem that seems to be getting worse. But across the country, L.A. isn’t considered to be a failure. To the contrary, at last week’s National Conference on Ending Homelessness in Washington, D.C., attendees repeatedly held up the city, the county and the state as models of political will for getting people into housing. (Oreskes, 8/1)

The Advocate: Baton Rouge Tech Startup Raises Seed Round For Telemedicine Software
Relief Telemed, a Baton Rouge-based technology startup that sells telemedicine software to health care providers, raised a $150,000 seed round from investors — mostly friends and family — and entered a second seed round. Relief Telemed was co-founded in 2017 by entrepreneur Vishal Vasanji and James Davis, a professor at LSU as chief technology officer. This year, Dr. Ronald Andrews, a physician who owns Pediatric and Internal Medicine Associates in Baton Rouge, joined the company as its medical director. (Mosbrucker, 8/1)

State House News Service: State Commission To Examine Licensing For Medical Professionals Trained In Other Countries
One of the more than 100 outside sections in the $43.3 billion state budget Governor Charlie Baker signed into law on Wednesday creates a 23-member commission of government and health care officials, giving them just under two years to report on “strategies to integrate foreign-trained medical professionals into rural and underserved areas in need of medical services.” According to the Massachusetts Immigrant and Refugee Advocacy Coalition, more than 20 percent of the over 8,000 doctors, nurses, pharmacists, mental health providers, and other medical professionals in the Bay State who were educated abroad are unemployed or underemployed because of difficulties getting licensed in the US. (Lannan, 8/1)

The Associated Press: San Francisco Public Toilets Help Homeless, Cost $200,000
The sidewalks surrounding Ahmed Al Barak’s corner market in one of San Francisco’s roughest neighborhoods are filled with cardboard, used syringes and homeless people who have nowhere safe to go at night. But Al Barak says it’s an improvement from a year ago, before the city posted a portable toilet across the street from his business in the city’s Tenderloin district. He no longer regularly sees people relieve themselves in broad daylight, and he doesn’t see as much feces and urine on the streets. In his opinion, it’s the one bright spot in a city where taxes are too high. (Har, 8/2)

Tampa Bay Times: Bayfront Health St. Petersburg Dogged By Questions About Finances, Patient Care
The city’s routine annual checkup with its largest hospital turned into an acute case of confusion Thursday as executives for Bayfront Health struggled to explain their own financial numbers under tough questioning from City Council members and confronted troubling accounts from area nurses, who aired complaints of deteriorating care. Joseph Mullany, regional CEO of Bayfront Health, the health care network which has the St. Petersburg hospital as its flagship, painted a rosy picture in a presentation before council members. He said the 480-bed facility had increased charity care for the uninsured and was intent on growing and serving the community. (Griffin, 8/1)

Los Angeles Times: This California Town Wants To Be A 2nd Amendment 'Sanctuary City' For Guns And Ammo
The blistering sun hung high above the barren landscape, 118 degrees of scatter-the-critters hot, as Tim Terral loaded a magazine into his 9-millimeter pistol. He narrowed his eyes, fixing his gaze on a target before a succession of pops cut through the silence. Bull’s-eye. Satisfied, Terral wiped a bead of sweat off his brow and cocked his head to the side, a coy smile spreading across his slender face. “I don’t miss much,” he crowed. (Fry, 8/1)

Los Angeles Times: Cedars-Sinai Division Director And UCLA Instructor Pleads Not Guilty To Felony Child Porn Charges
A UCLA instructor and division director at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center pleaded not guilty Thursday to charges of distributing and possessing child pornography. Guido Germano of Santa Monica is charged with one felony count each of distribution of obscene matter and possession of child or youth pornography, the Los Angeles County district attorney’s office said in a release. Germano, 59, is suspected of distributing child pornography videos using peer-to-peer software and downloading them onto his personal computer at his home. (Diaz, 8/1)

Los Angeles Times: After Boy's Death, Family Sues L.A. County’s Child Welfare Agency For $50 Million
Even years later, tears still flow easily for Maria Barron when she describes her efforts to rescue her nephew, Anthony Avalos, from his abusive Antelope Valley home. She had been a constant presence in Anthony’s life — potty training, consulting with his teachers in preschool, hearing his boyhood dreams about being a fireman. Before his death at age 10, the boy confided in her and her husband about the abuse, too. (Stiles, 8/1)