Nursing ranks are gutted; those left feel unappreciated, overworked
“I can’t give you numbers, but every hospital has empty beds now,” said Dr. Richard Walker, interim chair of Emergency Medicine at the University of Tennessee Health Science Center.
Publisher: Daily Memphian
COVID-19’s probably a ‘forever virus’
“If you’re a virus, you want to propagate,” said Jon McCullers, who is on the Shelby County Board of Health and is chief operating officer for the College of Medicine at the University of Tennessee Health Science Center.
Movers and Shakers
Cynthia Russell, PhD, RN, has been named vice chancellor for Academic, Faculty and Student Affairs (AFSA) at the University of Tennessee Health Science Center. Russell has served as the interim vice chancellor for AFSA since December 2020.Russell graduated from the Holzer Medical Center School of Nursing in Gallipolis, Ohio. She earned her BSN from Ohio… Read More
Dangerously over capacity’ ERs at risk of treating only those likely to survive
With projections that COVID hospitalizations will double by the end of August and increase sixfold by late September, health and city officials are hammering home the role everyone has now to preserve the health care systems.
New mask mandate goes into effect 7 a.m. Friday
The Shelby County Health Department issued a mask mandate Wednesday, effective 7 a.m. Friday, Aug. 20, for everyone age 2 and older, regardless of vaccination status.It applies to all indoor, public settings. Outdoor events will not require masking.
Health care workers by thousands petition order
In less than 24 hours, hundreds of health care workers from across Tennessee, a preponderance from Memphis, have signed an open letter taking Gov. Bill Lee to task for making masking voluntary in K-12 schools. “As trained healthcare providers, we strongly oppose Governor Lee’s Executive Order,” said the letter, written by Dr. Erica Kaye at… Read More
Nurse practitioners fight supervisory restrictions, say they could treat more patients
To ease the medical staffing crunch, Gov. Bill Lee has twice lifted restrictions on who can provide patient care, including students in health care, retired staff, and doctors and nurses not licensed in Tennessee.Executive Order No. 83, issued Aug. 6, eased the restrictions again for these groups but did not ease supervisory restrictions on nurse… Read More
Local ICU capacity expected to be ‘severely stressed,’ ER wait times up
Every emergency room in Memphis is holding patients, often 24 hours or more, waiting for beds to open. Within days, the Memphis-Shelby County COVID-19 Task Force is expected to announce plans for how health care will proceed as the number of cases is expected to surpass last winter’s peak.