Los Angeles police arrested a man Friday in connection with a road-rage-fueled scuffle at Los Angeles International Airport that knocked an elderly woman to the ground, leaving her unconscious.
Jasan Givens Sr. was arrested shortly after 10 a.m. in South L.A.’s Chesterfield Square neighborhood by members of an LAPD and airport police task force.
According to online records, he was booked into the Los Angeles Police Department’s 77th Street Division jail on suspicion of felony battery and his bail was set at $50,000. Givens is scheduled to make his first court appearance July 12.
Police say that a preliminary investigation suggests that Givens, 38, and another man got into a heated dispute before their fight May 31. The incident occurred about 9:25 a.m.
Video from a surveillance camera shows a man, who police say was Givens, chasing after a shirtless man on the sidewalk before continuing into the street outside baggage claim. There, an elderly woman was standing while her luggage was being unloaded from her vehicle.
Givens and the other man then slam into the woman, just as Givens tackles the other man from behind, the video shows. The woman was knocked to the ground face-down.
The two men can then be seen wrestling with each other on the ground behind the vehicle as the woman lies motionless beside them as others move in to check on her.
The woman, who has not been identified, was knocked unconscious and taken to a hospital in critical condition, police said. She has since been released. There were no further details about the extent of her injuries.
While Givens fled the scene, KTLA-TV Channel 5 reported the other man involved in the fight was arrested, according to police.
“The most shocking thing … is after this happened, both the individuals failed to render aid,” LAPD Det. Scott Danielson told the station. “Our victim here could be your mother or your grandmother.”
Five people rescued from a burning apartment building in Denver’s Five Points neighborhood were sent to the hospital Saturday morning.
Fire crews responded to reports of smoke coming from an apartment building near East 22nd Avenue and North Clarkson Street, the Denver Fire Department said in an 8 a.m. statement on social media.
Denver firefighters rescued people from the upper floors of the building using ladder trucks and quickly extinguished the blaze, the fire department stated.
Paramedics transported five people to hospitals after the fire, but their condition is unknown, the fire department said in an 8:24 a.m. update.
The cause of the fire remains under investigation.
Eight people at the women’s jail in Lynwood were hospitalized Tuesday afternoon after they were exposed to a “toxic substance,” according to the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department.
Just before 5 p.m., deputies at Century Regional Detention Facility responded to a medical emergency involving several incarcerated women, the department said in a news release.
Deputies “provided lifesaving measures” before Los Angeles County Fire Department personnel transported six inmates and two employees to the hospital, officials told The Times.
“All the females were conscious and breathing at the time of being transported,” the Sheriff’s Department said Tuesday evening. On Wednesday morning, an official said all eight people were in stable condition.
The department did not provide any information about the ages of the affected inmates or whether they were all housed in the same unit.
Officials did not say what substance the inmates and staff may have been exposed to or whether it was believed to be an illicit drug or other type of toxic chemical.
Florida has become the first state to allow doctors to perform cesarean sections outside of hospitals, siding with a private equity-owned physicians group that says the change will lower costs and give pregnant women the homier birthing atmosphere that many desire.
But the hospital industry and the nation’s leading obstetricians’ association say that even though some Florida hospitals have closed their maternity wards in recent years, performing C-sections in doctor-run clinics will increase the risks for women and babies when complications arise.
“A pregnant patient that is considered low-risk in one moment can suddenly need lifesaving care in the next,” Cole Greves, an Orlando perinatologist who chairs the Florida chapter of the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, said in an email to KFF Health News. The new birth clinics, “even with increased regulation, cannot guarantee the level of safety patients would receive within a hospital.”
This spring, a law was enacted allowing “advanced birth centers,” where physicians can deliver babies vaginally or by C-section to women deemed at low risk of complications. Women would be able to stay overnight at the clinics.
Women’s Care Enterprises, a private equity-owned physicians group with locations mostly in Florida along with California and Kentucky, lobbied the state legislature to make the change. BC Partners, a London-based investment firm, bought Women’s Care in 2020.
“We have patients who don’t want to deliver in a hospital, and that breaks our heart,” said Stephen Snow, who recently retired as an OB-GYN with Women’s Care and testified before the Florida Legislature advocating for the change in 2018.
Brittany Miller, vice president of strategic initiatives with Women’s Care, said the group would not comment on the issue.
Health experts are leery.
“What this looks like is a poor substitute for quality obstetrical care effectively being billed as something that gives people more choices,” said Alice Abernathy, an assistant professor of obstetrics and gynecology at the University of Pennsylvania Perelman School of Medicine. “This feels like a bad band-aid on a chronic issue that will make outcomes worse rather than better,” Abernathy said.
Nearly one-third of U.S. births occur via C-section, the surgical delivery of a baby through an incision in the mother’s abdomen and uterus. Generally, doctors use the procedure when they believe it is safer than vaginal delivery for the parent, the baby, or both. Such medical decisions can take place months before birth, or in an emergency.
Florida state Sen. Gayle Harrell, the Republican who sponsored the birth center bill, said having a C-section outside of a hospital may seem like a radical change, but so was the opening of outpatient surgery centers in the late 1980s.
Harrell, who managed her husband’s OB-GYN practice, said birth centers will have to meet the same high standards for staffing, infection control, and other aspects as those at outpatient surgery centers.
“Given where we are with the need, and maternity deserts across the state, this is something that will help us and help moms get the best care,” she said.
Seventeen hospitals in the state have closed their maternity units since 2019, with many citing low insurance reimbursement and high malpractice costs, according to the Florida Hospital Association.
Mary Mayhew, CEO of the Florida Hospital Association, said it is wrong to compare birth centers to ambulatory surgery centers because of the many risks associated with C-sections, such as hemorrhaging.
The Florida law requires advanced birth centers to have a transfer agreement with a hospital, but it does not dictate where the facilities can open nor their proximity to a hospital.
“We have serious concerns about the impact this model has on our collective efforts to improve maternal and infant health,” Mayhew said. “Our hospitals do not see this in the best interest of providing quality and safety in labor and delivery.”
Despite its opposition to the new birth centers, the Florida Hospital Association did not fight passage of the overall bill because it also included a major increase in the amount Medicaid pays hospitals for maternity care.
Mayhew said it is unlikely that the birth centers would help address care shortages. Hospitals are already struggling with a shortage of OB-GYNs, she said, and it is unrealistic to expect advanced birth centers to open in rural areas with a large proportion of people on Medicaid, which pays the lowest reimbursement for labor and delivery care.
It is unclear whether insurers will cover the advanced birth centers, though most insurers and Medicaid cover care at midwife-run birth centers. The advanced birth centers will not accept emergency walk-ins and will treat only patients whose insurance contracts with the facilities, making them in-network.
Snow, the retired OB-GYN with Women’s Care, said the group plans to open an advanced birth center in the Tampa or Orlando area.
The advanced birth center concept is an improvement on midwife care that enables deliveries outside of hospitals, he said, as the centers allow women to stay overnight and, if necessary, offer anesthesia and C-sections.
Snow acknowledged that, with a private equity firm invested in Women’s Care, the birth center idea is also about making money. But he said hospitals have the same profit incentive and, like midwives, likely oppose the idea of centers that can provide C-sections because they could cut into hospital revenue.
“We are trying to reduce the cost of medicine, and this would be more cost-effective and more pleasant for patients,” he said.
Kate Bauer, executive director of the American Association of Birth Centers, said patients could confuse advanced birth centers with the existing, free-standing birth centers for low-risk births that have been run by midwives for decades. There are currently 31 licensed birth centers in Florida and 411 free-standing birth centers in the United States, she said.
“This is a radical departure from the standard of care,” Bauer said. “It’s a bad idea,” she said, because it could increase risks to mom and baby.
No other state allows C-sections outside of hospitals. The only facility that offers similar care is a birth clinic in Wichita, Kansas, which is connected by a short walkway to a hospital, Wesley Medical Center.
The clinic provides “hotel-like” maternity suites where staffers deliver about 100 babies a month, compared with 500 per month in the hospital itself.
Morgan Tracy, a maternity nurse navigator at the center, said the concept works largely because the hospital and birthing suites can share staff and pharmacy access, plus patients can be quickly transferred to the main hospital if complications arise.
“The beauty is there are team members on both sides of the street,” Tracy said.
BOSTON — Lawmakers are seeking more support for the state’s safety net hospitals amid rising concerns about the fiscal health of a fund that helps cover medical costs for large numbers of uninsured and low-income patients.
Hospitals and health insurers pay into the so-called safety net fund – a pool of money that helps fund care for hundreds of thousands of low-income residents who are uninsured or underinsured – with the state chipping in additional funding. But if the fund runs low, hospitals are on the hook for the shortfall.
The fund is projected to have a shortfall of more than $220 million in the upcoming fiscal year, hospitals say, rising to the highest level in nearly two decades.
Without additional funding, financially challenged hospitals will be forced to cover the deficit, leaving less money to provide medical care for low-income and uninsured patients, they say.
An amendment to the Senate’s version of the $57.9 billion state budget filed by Sen. Barry Finegold, D-Andover, would require commercial health insurance companies to cover 50% of any revenue shortfalls in the safety net fund.
“We need to do something to help our local hospitals,” Finegold said. “This is part of a long-term problem with funding for hospitals that serve the state’s most vulnerable residents. We need to fix it.”
Many earmarks
Finegold’s proposal is one of more than 1,000 amendments to the Senate’s budget, many of them local earmarks seeking to divert more state money to local governments, schools, cash-strapped community groups and nonprofits. Only a handful will likely make it into the Senate’s final spending package.
The plan faces pushback from the Massachusetts Association of Health Plans, which represents commercial insurers who would be impacted by the proposed changes to the hospital safety net program.
Lora Pellegrini, the group’s president and CEO, said requiring insurers to cover the fund’s shortfalls would jeopardize negotiations between the state Department of Health and Human Services and the U.S. Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services that seek to reduce assessments paid by medical insurance carriers.
“This really came out of nowhere, and would be counterproductive to those efforts,” she said. “We have a committee process for a reason and that’s where these kinds of special interest issues should be vetted, not in the budget.”
But the move is backed by the Massachusetts Health and Hospital Association, which says requiring insurers to cover the shortfall would help alleviate an “unmanageable financial burden” on the health care system “by broadening funding support for the program.”
“The Health Safety Net is a vital component of Massachusetts’ healthcare infrastructure and its ability to cover the costs of care for low-income and uninsured patients,” Daniel McHale, MHP’s vice president for Healthcare Finance & Policy, said in a statement.
“At this increasingly fragile time for the entire health care system, it is imperative that we take the steps needed to stabilize the safety net for the people and providers who rely on it each day.”
Local hospitals affected
The state’s safety net hospitals and community health centers – which include Lawrence Hospital, Salem Hospital, Holy Family Hospital in Methuen and Anna Jaques Hospital in Newburyport – serve a disproportionate percentage of low-income patients.
Many are heavily dependent on Medicaid reimbursements, which are typically less than commercial insurance payouts.
Nearly 30% of Lawrence General’s gross revenue is for care provided to Medicaid, or MassHealth, patients. The state average is 18%.
Many community hospitals are collecting from low-paying government insurance programs, and getting below-average reimbursements from commercial insurers, advocates say.
Lawmakers also swept money from the hospital safety net fund to help cover the costs of new Medicare savings programs that pay some or all of eligible senior citizen’s premiums and other health care costs, including prescriptions.
Hospitals are also seeing increased demand from uninsured patients as hundreds of thousands of Medicaid recipients see their state-sponsored health care coverage dropped following the end of federal pandemic-related programs, which is driving up costs. Claims processing problems are another factor adding to hospital costs, they say.
Those and other factors have widened the fund’s shortfall from $68 million in fiscal 2022 to more than $210 million in the previous fiscal year, according to the hospital association. Combined, the shortfall could reach $600 million for the three fiscal years, the association said.
Biggest expense
The House, which approved its $58.2 billion version of the state budget two weeks ago, proposed $17.3 million in state funding for the hospital safety net fund. The Senate, which begins debate on its version of the budget next week, has proposed a similar amount.
In the current budget, the state allocated $91.4 million for the safety net fund.
But the House budget didn’t include an amendment requiring insurers to help hospitals pay the shortfall. That means even if the Senate approves Finegold’s amendment, it would still need to be negotiated as part of the final budget before landing on Gov. Maura Healey’s desk for consideration.
Health care coverage, in the meantime, is one of the state’s biggest expenses. Medicaid costs have doubled in the past decade and now account for nearly 40% of state spending.
MassHealth serves more than 2 million people – roughly one-third of the state’s population – despite federal Medicaid redeterminations that have reduced its rolls over the past year.
CHICAGO — A child was killed and three others, including an infant, were injured in a crash along DuSable Lake Shore Drive on Sunday afternoon.
According to Chicago police, the deadly crash unfolded just before 5:20 p.m. in the 5300 block of Lake Shore Drive.
Authorities say the driver of a Chevy Malibu, a 31-year-old man, was traveling along the roadway when he lost control of the vehicle and struck several objects.
Amid the crash, a 3-year-old girl suffered life-threatening injuries. She was later taken to the hospital where she was pronounced dead.
Three others, including a 9-month-old girl, a 9-year-old girl and a 25-year-old woman, were all taken to the hospital with non-life-threatening injuries.
Currently, it is unclear why the driver lost control of the car.
Authorteis have not yet identifeied any of the vicitms.
VANCOUVER, Wash., May 2, 2024 (Newswire.com)
– Dollar For, a national nonprofit organization that assists patients in accessing hospital charity care, has released groundbreaking findings from its 2023 research studies to assess the effectiveness of hospital financial assistance programs. The results show a $14 Billion shortfall in the amount of charity care hospitals provide, as well as burdensome requirements on patients and notable racial disparities.
All nonprofit hospitals in the United States are required to provide free or discounted care to individuals who meet certain income requirements. Many for-profit hospitals offer these financial assistance programs as well. Dollar For helps patients submit hospital financial assistance applications and holds hospitals accountable to federal financial assistance laws. To date, they’ve eliminated over $47M in medical debt.
In their initial study, Dollar For’s research team examined both hospital self-reported tax filings and a first-of-its-kind study in Maryland that matched patient billing records to their income filings. Shockingly, the study uncovered that hospitals are failing to provide at least $14 billion annually in debt relief for their charity care-eligible patients.
In their follow-up study, Dollar For delved deeper into the challenges patients face in accessing financial assistance. Surveying over 1,600 patients, the study aimed to uncover why so many individuals were falling through the cracks. The results revealed a stark reality: only 29% of patients with hospital bills they cannot afford are able to learn about, apply for, and receive charity care. The majority of patients (52%) reported receiving no information whatsoever from their hospital regarding financial assistance. The analysis also unveiled a troubling disparity: Black patients have a 62% lower probability of being approved for charity care than all other races.
“Hospitals desperately need to rethink their charity care programs to make sure they’re reaching the patients who need them,” said Jared Walker, founder at Dollar For. “A medical crisis shouldn’t turn into a financial crisis. But unfortunately for most people, it does. Hospitals and the government have the power to change that.”
Dollar For remains committed to advocating for policy changes and working collaboratively with hospitals and policymakers to make charity care known, easy, and fair for all patients.
Colorado is experiencing an alarming spike in syphilis among newborns, leading the state to issue a public health order Thursday aimed at curbing the disease’s spread through wider testing.
In 2023, 50 infants in Colorado were born with syphilis, up from only seven in 2018. So far this year, the state is halfway to last year’s total, with five infected babies who were stillborn and two who died in their first months of life, state epidemiologist Dr. Rachel Herlihy said.
“We’ve already had 25 cases so far this year, putting us on track to have maybe 100 cases,” she said at a news conference, addressing what Gov. Jared Polis’s office called a “growing epidemic.”
Syphilis is a sexually transmitted infection that sometimes causes no symptoms in adults, though the bacteria can eventually damage the heart and brain if a person doesn’t receive treatment. But roughly two out of five babies born to infected mothers will be stillborn or die in infancy, and those who survive are at risk of intellectual disability, bone deformities and other lifelong health problems, Herlihy said.
The new public health order from the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment requires all health care providers to offer syphilis testing at least three times to pregnant patients: in the first trimester, in the third trimester and at birth.
Nearly all insurance plans cover the testing, and people without insurance can receive it for free at public health clinics or by ordering a home test kit.
“We hope to save many babies from death and suffering,” Polis said at the news conference.
On Thursday, the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists issued a recommendation that all pregnant patients receive testing three times. Previously, it only recommended more than one test if a patient had certain risk factors for getting infected while pregnant.
“The cases of congenital syphilis are definitely climbing, and they’ve been climbing over the last 10 years. And it’s completely preventable… It’s unacceptable,” said Dr. Laura Riley, who chairs the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology at Weill Cornell Medicine and helped with the guidance. “We need to be able to do better diagnostics and treatment.”
The Colorado order also requires offering tests to prisoners who are pregnant, and to people who have experienced a stillbirth after 20 weeks of pregnancy, when spontaneous miscarriages are rare. While it would be too late for that particular fetus after a stillbirth, antibiotic treatment would protect the mother, her sex partners and any future pregnancies.
Patients and prisoners aren’t required to undergo testing if they don’t want to, but their providers have to give them the option, said Jill Hunsaker Ryan, executive director of the state health department. State law already required that providers offer everyone syphilis testing in the first trimester.
Last year, 3,266 people in Colorado received a syphilis diagnosis, which was a 5% increase over the previous year and more than three times the number diagnosed in 2018. Most of the diagnoses are still in men, because the bacteria became entrenched in the community of gay and bisexual men. About one-third are in women, though, and diagnoses have risen faster among women than among men.
Nationwide, syphilis diagnoses reached their highest rate since at least 1950 in 2022, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Cases peaked in the 1940s, before antibiotics became widely available, and fell throughout the 20th century.
People of color and those who lack access to reliable health care, such as the homeless population, have been hit disproportionately hard in the resurgence over the last few years.
Earlier this year, the state health department asked for $8 million over four years to fund an opt-out syphilis screening program at two hospital emergency departments in Denver and Pueblo County, which both have a significant share of new infections.
The department also proposed to distribute rapid tests to organizations that work with at-risk people; to fund delivering treatment to some people in their homes; and to build up a stockpile of the antibiotics used to treat syphilis. Most antibiotics are cheap, but the best option for syphilis, Bicillin, is relatively expensive and in short supply, so providers don’t always opt to stock it.
The state and the Pueblo Department of Public Health and Environment already run a small pilot program to bring treatment to people in their homes. Jails in Pueblo, El Paso and Jefferson counties also have started screening female prisoners and offering treatment to anyone who tests positive.
Pueblo County Sheriff David Lucero said about one-quarter of the 634 people his department has screened so far tested positive, and seven were pregnant at the time of their positive test. The Pueblo County jail has a partnership with the local health department to follow up if someone returns to the community before completing treatment, he said.
“Without a doubt, this program saves lives,” Lucero said.
The biggest driver of the increase in congenital syphilis seems to be that mothers aren’t getting early prenatal care, which could identify and cure the infection, Herlihy said. The mothers of babies born affected this year have higher rates of previous incarceration, untreated addiction and homelessness than the general population, she said.
“The risk factors we’re seeing are really driving the actions we’re taking,” she said.
Multiple Regional Transportation District light rail lines shut down temporarily Wednesday after a train hit a car running a red light in downtown Denver’s Central Business District.
The crash happened around 1 p.m. at the intersection of Stout and 15th streets in Denver, RTD spokesperson Tina Jaquez said. No light rail customers or operators were injured in the crash.
RTD’s D and H lines experienced delays that resolved around 2:30 p.m., once the crash was cleared from the tracks, Jaquez said.
The driver of the car transported to the hospital with minor injuries, said Siena Riley, a spokesperson for the Denver Police Department. The driver ran a red light and was hit by the train.
Los Angeles County sheriff’s deputies shot and killed a man late Saturday in East Los Angeles after he allegedly drove a van toward one of the officers after fleeing the scene of a crime, authorities said.
Deputies responded to a domestic assault call shortly before midnight in the 1500 block of North Herbert Avenue, according to the sheriff’s department.
Deputies saw the alleged assailant leave the area in a green van, according to the department.
They found the man driving west on the 3900 block of Snow Drive and tried to stop the van, officials said. The deputies got out of their vehicle and drew their guns. The man made a U-turn in a cul-de-sac and then started driving toward one of the deputies, according to the sheriff’s department.
The driver was shot in the torso, about 11:47 p.m. The sheriff’s department did not immediately report how many deputies shot the man or how many times he was shot.
The unidentified man, reported to be between 40 to 45, was taken to a hospital, where he died, officials said.
A deputy was taken to a hospital and treated for a related injury. No one else was injured.
As of late Sunday morning, the sheriff’s department had not released the name of the man or further details surrounding the shooting.
This is a breaking news story based on preliminary information provided by law enforcement. It will be updated if more information becomes immediately available.
Detroit Receiving Hospital is part of the Detroit Medical Center.
A former medical resident at Detroit Medical Center is suing the hospital system, saying he was fired in retaliation for blowing the whistle on the mistreatment of a patient who subsequently became quadriplegic.
Joseph Owens was terminated from the residency program in November, less than a month after he notified his supervisor of a series of avoidable missteps, according to the lawsuit filed Wednesday in Wayne County Circuit Court.
A 69-year-old man was admitted to Detroit Receiving Hospital for an acute kidney injury on Aug. 24, 2023, complaining of weakness and a possible seizure.
Even though hospital staff knew he was a fall risk, the patient was placed in a sitting position on his hospital bed, with his feet on the floor and a bedside table in front of him, so that he could eat dinner. A hospital employee, known as a sitter, should have restrained the patient so he didn’t fall, but did not, according to the lawsuit against Tenet, which owns DMC.
The lawsuit also names Wayne State University, where Owens was enrolled in the medical residency program, and his superior, Dr. Shaheena Raheem.
After the patient’s eyes rolled back, he fell to the ground, striking his head and seriously injuring his spine. It appeared he had been having what is known as a grand mal seizure, according to the suit.
Despite the serious injuries, the patient was not taken to the intensive care unit, and there was no staff available to give him a head CT scan.
The next morning, the patient “was unable to move any of his extremities,” the lawsuit states.
It was later determined that he was a quadriplegic as a result of his spinal injuries and likely would never move his arms or feet again.
Although Owens was one of several residents and doctors in the room after the fall, he faced all of the criticism, he says.
Raheem sent him a letter on Sept. 6, complaining of his patient care. She also alleged he was unprofessional and chronically tardy.
Owens responded to Raheem a month later, saying the patient was “a fall risk” but was not properly secured by the sitter, which amounted to malpractice, the suit alleges. Owens says he was following the orders of his superior and did nothing wrong.
“The sitter for the patient breached the standard of care by not adhering to the fall risk when the patient was admitted,” the lawsuit states.
In an interview with Metro Times, Owens says he was terminated for blowing the whistle.
“I told the truth. That’s all I did,” Owens says.
DMC declined to comment, citing ongoing litigation.
“At the end of the day, we had a person who walked into the hospital and was rolled out,” Owens’s attorney Dionne Webster-Cox tells Metro Times. “That’s what happened.”
According to Owens, there are “systemic problems” at DMC that deprive patients of decent care. For example, he says, a nursing staff shortage makes it impossible for many patients to receive timely attention.
“There wasn’t enough nursing staff to get a CT scan,” Owens says. “That should have happened within an hour. [The fall] happened around 5:30, and I was assured that he was going to get a CT scan at 7:30. It’s really sad that any of this happened.”
The CT scan wasn’t done until the next day.
Owens hoped to finish his residency and then take over his mother’s internal medicine practice in Florida. But he can’t do that without the completed residency.
DMC’s claims, which he says are false, are making it very difficult for him to get accepted into a new residency program.
“It has devastated my life,” Owens says. “I can’t get the jobs I want, and I have all this debt.”
RIVERSIDE, Calif. (CNS) — A 27-year-old nurse was arrested on suspicion of sexually assaulting a female patient at a Kaiser Permanente Hospital in Riverside where he worked, police said.
Jacob Daniel Hartman of Corona was arrested Wednesday and booked into the Robert Presley Detention Center on sexual assault charges, including sexual battery of an unconscious person, according to Riverside Police Department spokesman Ryan J. Railsback. He was being held in lieu of $50,000 bail.
Hartman has since been terminated from the hospital. Detectives presume there are additional victims have not come forward.
“As soon as we learned of this serious accusation, we immediately cooperated with law enforcement and started an internal investigation,” a statement from the hospital said.
Anyone with information on the assaults was urged to contact Detective Daniel Suarez at (951) 353-7120 or DSuarez@RiversideCA.gov. Tipsters who prefer to remain anonymous can email RPDTips@RiversideCA.gov.
LOS ANGELES — “The Good Doctor” returns for its seventh and final season. Star and executive producer Freddie Highmore says that when it’s all over, viewers will feel satisfied with swan song season of “The Good Doctor.”
“As you move through, you know, these last 10 episodes, there’s definitely going to be something special that feels right for everyone involved,” Highmore said.
For Freddie’s character, Dr. Shaun Murphy, that something special is fatherhood.
“It’s a pretty big, crazy season,” Highmore said. “Obviously, we left off season six with Shaun and Leah’s newborn baby. And we’re going to be following, you know, Shaun as he has the joys and also the struggles of fatherhood and sort of juggling those two roles.”
Highmore reflected on saying goodbye to this favorite character.
“The analogy that someone gave me to me and I’ve been borrowing is that it’ feels a bit like graduation in the sense that it’s this big momentous event and sort of goodbye, and it makes you nostalgic and at the same time excited for the future and looking forward to other opportunities,” Highmore said.
This final season will be dramatic… and as always, unexpected.
“It will be genuinely conclusive for everyone. I think, you know, the way that the stories are being written and continue to be written at the moment, it will feel satisfying for everyone involved,” Highmore said. “I think that’s our aim. Certainly a few surprises along the way.”
LOS ANGELES — “The Good Doctor” returns for its seventh and final season. Star and executive producer Freddie Highmore says that when it’s all over, viewers will feel satisfied with swan song season of “The Good Doctor.”
“As you move through, you know, these last 10 episodes, there’s definitely going to be something special that feels right for everyone involved,” Highmore said.
For Freddie’s character, Dr. Shaun Murphy, that something special is fatherhood.
“It’s a pretty big, crazy season,” Highmore said. “Obviously, we left off season six with Shaun and Leah’s newborn baby. And we’re going to be following, you know, Shaun as he has the joys and also the struggles of fatherhood and sort of juggling those two roles.”
Highmore reflected on saying goodbye to this favorite character.
“The analogy that someone gave me to me and I’ve been borrowing is that it’ feels a bit like graduation in the sense that it’s this big momentous event and sort of goodbye, and it makes you nostalgic and at the same time excited for the future and looking forward to other opportunities,” Highmore said.
This final season will be dramatic… and as always, unexpected.
“It will be genuinely conclusive for everyone. I think, you know, the way that the stories are being written and continue to be written at the moment, it will feel satisfying for everyone involved,” Highmore said. “I think that’s our aim. Certainly a few surprises along the way.”
The American Civil Liberties Union of Colorado alleges Children’s Hospital Colorado is discriminating against transgender patients by refusing to perform surgeries it offers to cisgender patients with other conditions.
The lawsuit, filed Wednesday in Denver District Court, also states the hospital is discriminating on the basis of disability, because gender dysphoria — distress when a person’s sense of their gender doesn’t align with physical characteristics — is a medical condition.
The ACLU filed it on behalf of an 18-year-old Denver patient who was on track to receive gender-affirming surgery before the hospital discontinued that service.
The patient, who is identified in the lawsuit by the pseudonym Caden Kent, started receiving care at Children’s for mental health concerns when he was 16. He was diagnosed with gender dysphoria a few months later and had undergone about eight months of assessment before determining he was a candidate for surgery once he turned 18.
The hospital stated it had received an unusual number of referrals for gender-affirming surgery as programs shut down in other states, and that it didn’t shut down the program because of threats. It came at a time when children’s hospitals were scrubbing references to transgender care from their websites, though, with at least 21 removing information in 2022. A search on the hospital’s website for its TRUE Center for Gender Diversity no longer turns up any results.
According to the lawsuit, Kent chose to undergo surgery at Children’s because he received other care there, and hoped to recover from the surgery before leaving for college in the fall. Other surgical providers who accept his family’s insurance are booked up, meaning his parents will have to pay out-of-pocket for him to undergo the surgery in that time frame. Kent had resorted to chest-binding to ease his dysphoria, but found himself withdrawing from others when binding became too painful and he couldn’t otherwise hide the breast tissue, it said.
“(Children’s Hospital Colorado’s) abrupt cancellation of all gender-affirming surgeries for its trans patients was devastating to Caden, other impacted patients, and Colorado’s transgender community,” ACLU of Colorado legal director Tim Macdonald said in a news release. “Refusal to provide medically necessary care based on the identity of the person seeking it, and the condition for which they are seeking it, is discriminatory and illegal under the Colorado Anti-Discrimination Act.”
Maybe the ancient ritual will help. Checked on her two hrs ago. Got worried and went back to check on her again since she went to the hospital friday. Now im waiting in the ER as the condition i found her in was much worse. Anybody got some cat memes i can disassociate with? Ill update later today.
The total number of passengers involved in the crash is unknown, but three people were taken to the hospital, one with serious injuries, the post stated.
West Metro Fire Rescue crews responded to the scene.
Two people were killed and eight others were wounded in a shooting at an underground New Year’s Eve celebration in downtown Los Angeles early Monday, according to the Los Angeles Police Department.
Shortly before 1 a.m. on New Year’s Day, officers received a radio call of a shooting in the area of 15th Street and Santa Fe Avenue. When they arrived at the cross streets they heard gunshots coming from nearby Porter Street and Santa Fe Avenue. A large crowd was fleeing the area, and several wounded people were lying on the street and sidewalk, police wrote in a news release.
A man and woman were pronounced dead at the scene, police said. Authorities initially reported three people had been wounded early Monday, but in an afternoon update said eight were injured in addition to the two who were killed. The wounded individuals were treated at hospitals, but police did not provide an update on their conditions.
The shooting victims were attending a New Year’s Eve party in the 2300 block of Porter Street. Authorities believe a dispute between people at the gathering led to the shooting. No information on any suspects was immediately available.
Authorities are asking anyone with information to call Det. Justin Howarth at (213) 996-4143. Anonymous tips can be directed to L.A. Regional Crime Stoppers at (800) 222-TIPS or www.lacrimestoppers.org.
One woman was killed and five other people were injured in a shooting early Sunday near a Hawthorne strip mall, according to the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department.
The shooting happened around 12:27 a.m. in the 14100 block of Crenshaw Boulevard, said Lt. Art Spencer with the sheriff’s Homicide Bureau. The Hawthorne Police Department arrived and found a man suffering from gunshot wounds, who was taken to a hospital and stabilized, Spencer said.
Spencer said that as Hawthorne police continued to investigate, they learned that five other people had been shot in the same incident. One of them, a woman, died of her injuries at a hospital. Among the remaining victims, one was in critical condition and the rest were stable, he said.
“It looks like they were congregating in the strip mall and the shooting occurred,” Spencer said.
No suspect has been identified and no motive for the shooting has been determined at this time.
The Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department, which is assisting Hawthorne police with the investigation, is encouraging anyone with information about the shooting to contact their Homicide Bureau at (323) 890-5500 or provide information anonymously at (800) 222-TIPS (8477).
COVID-19 and flu are rising across California, sparking new warnings from health officials to take precautions as the wider winter holiday season looms.
The uptick is modest and not wholly unexpected — wintertime surges have been an annual occurrence since the coronavirus first emerged. But experts say lagging uptake of the latest reformulated vaccines has left some populations particularly vulnerable to severe health outcomes that are largely preventable at this point.
Over the week that ended Dec. 9, 2,449 Californians were newly admitted to hospitals with a coronavirus infection, up 40% over the last month, according to federal data.
California was considered to have “high” viral illness activity level as of Dec. 9, among the worst designations in the country, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said.
As of Dec. 9, California was considered to have a “high” level of flu-like illness, which includes viral illnesses such as COVID-19 and respiratory syncytial virus, or RSV.
(U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention )
“Respiratory illness activity is rapidly increasing across the United States,” the CDC said in a bulletin Thursday afternoon. “Millions of people may get sick in the next month or two, and low vaccination rates mean more people will get more severe disease. Getting vaccinated now can help prevent hospitalizations and save lives.”
A rise in viral illness is expected this time of year, but the prevalence of COVID-19 adds a considerable health burden that didn’t exist before the pandemic. COVID-19 remains the primary cause of new respiratory hospitalizations and deaths nationally, causing 1,000 fatalities a week.
“COVID is still causing the most number of cases, the most number of hospitalizations and the most, unfortunately, number of deaths that we’re seeing week over week,” Dr. Mandy Cohen, director of the CDC, said in an online discussion Tuesday. “So while we all wish we could leave COVID in the rearview mirror, it is still here with us, and so we need to make sure we are continuing to take it very seriously.”
Cohen last week urged people to take precautions such as getting vaccinated, avoiding people who are sick and staying home when ill, regular hand-washing, improving air ventilation and wearing a mask.
“And get tested, so you know what you have and you can get treatment,” she said. “Getting tested and treated early can prevent you from getting severely ill, being hospitalized and can potentially save your life.”
Relatively speaking, COVID-19, flu and another ailment — respiratory syncytial virus, or RSV — aren’t at the heights they were this time last year, when their simultaneous circulation spawned a “tripledemic” that stressed healthcare facilities across the state, especially children’s hospitals.
Kaiser Permanente Southern California began noticing more COVID-19 illness starting in mid-November, with the rise accelerating after Thanksgiving, said Dr. Nancy Gin, regional medical director of quality and clinical analysis for the health system.
Coronavirus levels in Los Angeles County wastewater were at 38% of last winter’s peak for the week that ended Dec. 2, the most recent data available. That’s exactly the same as the height seen late this summer, when the region experienced a prolonged uptick in infections.
The latest figure signals a “medium” level of concern, as defined by L.A. County health officials.
In the San Francisco Bay Area, coronavirus levels in the San Jose watershed’s sewage have been at a “high” level for weeks.
Rising viral levels in wastewater is “like the canary in the coal mine,” said Dr. Peter Chin-Hong, a UC San Francisco infectious diseases expert. Higher concentrations could be followed by more illness, potentially severe enough to require hospital care.
“I’m just worried that it’s going to translate into hospitalizations around Christmastime,” he said.
Chin-Hong said he’s particularly concerned about seniors who haven’t received their updated vaccinations this autumn. Among Californians ages 65 and older, just 27% have received the latest COVID-19 vaccination that became available in September. Uptake is even lower in Los Angeles County — 21% — but higher in the Bay Area, where it’s around 40% in the most populous counties.
Seniors who have not gotten the latest vaccine are “the population we’re seeing in the hospital,” Chin-Hong said, and, especially those who are older than 75, “the population that’s dying.” It’s also likely that many of those who are dying aren’t getting anti-COVID drugs in time.
Flu vaccination rates are slightly lower than they were at this time last year, according to data shared by the CDC. As of early November, 36% of U.S. adults had received their flu shot, compared with 38% at that time last year. And for RSV, just 16% of adults ages 60 and older had received the newly available vaccine as of Dec. 2.
Alarmed by low vaccination rates, the CDC issued a health advisory on “the urgent need to increase immunization coverage for influenza, COVID-19 and RSV.” The agency asked healthcare providers to strongly urge immunizations, noting that “low vaccination rates, coupled with ongoing increases in national and international respiratory disease activity … could lead to more severe disease and increased healthcare capacity strain in the coming weeks.”
The CDC recommends virtually everyone ages 6 months and older get the latest flu and COVID-19 vaccinations. Adults ages 60 and older are also eligible to be vaccinated against RSV, which can be especially risky for older people with heart disease. There are two vaccines available for older adults: Abrysvo, made by Pfizer; and Arexvy, made by GSK.
The CDC also recommends the Abrysvo vaccine for pregnant people and immunizing babies against RSV with an antibody known as nirsevimab, also known by the trademarked name Beyfortus.
The agency is also urging doctors to recommend antiviral drugs for flu and COVID-19, such as Tamiflu and Paxlovid, for eligible patients. These “antiviral medications are currently underutilized, but are important to treat patients, especially persons at high-risk of progression to severe disease with influenza or COVID-19, including older adults and people with certain underlying medical conditions,” the CDC said.
Such antiviral drugs “are most effective in reducing the risk of complications when treatment is started as early as possible after symptom onset,” the CDC said.
So far, hospitals in Southern California and the Bay Area appear to be in fairly stable shape. More people are becoming ill, but so far, many aren’t needing to be hospitalized, Chin-Hong said.
Kaiser Southern California has been noticing more people ill with COVID-19 in its clinics and urgent care centers, “but they’re not landing in the hospital nearly as much compared to last year, certainly compared to two years ago,” Gin said. “Time will tell if the numbers that we see continue to go up.”
The health system, which serves 4.8 million members and operates 16 hospitals throughout the region, has observed a bit of a rise in the use of ventilators and intensive care units related to COVID-19, “but it’s certainly nothing dramatic,” Gin said.
But cases of influenza type A virus nationally “are really shooting up quite a bit. We are seeing that as well,” Gin said.
As for RSV, levels rose steadily from the end of September through mid-November. In the last few weeks, however, that virus seems to have flattened out at “less than half of what we saw last year at this time, at least by our testing numbers. So that’s a good sign,” Gin said.
Increasing coronavirus transmission is probably being assisted by waning immunity from past infections and older booster shots.
Officials are also monitoring the rapid rise of the JN.1 subvariant. Because of its unusually high number of mutations, this subvariant — described as a closely related offshoot of the BA.2.86, or Pirola strain — might be able to more easily infect people who had previously caught an older version of the coronavirus or haven’t yet received an updated shot.
Nationally, JN.1 is estimated to account for about 21% of coronavirus cases for the two-week period that ended Dec. 9, up from 8% in the prior two-week period. It’s the fastest-growing subvariant being tracked.
JN.1 is on the ascent while the current most dominant subvariant, HV.1, is declining. A descendant of the XBB subvariants that were dominant over the summer, HV.1 was estimated to account for 30% of coronavirus specimens for the most recent two-week period, down from 32% in the prior comparable period.
The rise of the new subvariant should encourage people, especially those who are older, to get the new vaccine, as outdated booster shots or natural immunity from past infections may not be protective enough. The new vaccine will replenish antibodies, Chin-Hong said, which will be especially important for at-risk people.
“Most people have gotten a previous infection, like during the summer, with one of the XBBs,” Chin-Hong said. The rise of JN.1 “just makes the clock tick faster before they’re more susceptible [to another coronavirus infection]. In other words, if the XBBs were the main game in town, you might have had a little bit more time before you would get infected again.”
The CDC said available vaccines, tests and antiviral medication continue to work well against JN.1.
