UPDATE, Dec. 29: Surgeons at St. Joseph Hospital in Eureka did not leave two different objects inside two different patients after surgeries this summer, the state Public Health Department said Thursday. That only happened once. Two episodes involving “retained foreign objects” show up on the state website because St. Joseph doctors reported them, as required […]
Medical
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Surgeon Leaves 10-inch Device inside St. Joe’s Patient
UPDATE, DEC. 21: After initially making an 11:30 a.m. appointment to speak with the Journal on Wednesday, St. Joseph Hospital canceled. Spokeswoman Leslie Broomall said the hospital had decided it wanted written questions instead. We politely declined. Broomall later did email an unsigned media statement saying that St. Joseph Hospital takes the error “very seriously” […]
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The Algae Diet
We get how this works! It’s easy: Just spray summa that magical “Klamath algae” into your maw and nobody will want to ask you out to dinner anymore, or even welcome you at the home table. Presto! Your diet begins. (Alternatively, and just as good a method: If you get the wrong Klamath algae, the […]
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Chickenpox, anyone?
For the folks who think that natural immunity beats a vaccination,Trinidad Elementary School has turned into a textbook lesson on how to grow your own outbreak. Chickenpox has spread swiftly through the 180-student school, apparently contracted so far by at least 16 children and adults. The numbers aren’t surprising given that roughly 20 percent of […]
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Class action money
Another round of payments has gone out in the Skilled Healthcare nursing home settlement, potentially triggering fresh confusion over how to keep as much money as possible without losing government benefits. Many people getting compensated for time they spent in understaffed nursing homes, including five homes in Humboldt County, receive disability or medical coverage that’s […]
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Woman Sues County For Lost Fingers
In a complaint filed in November in Humboldt County Superior Court, Nancy Nunez accuses Redwood Memorial Hospital for improperly treating her after she was in a motorcycle accident, resulting in the loss of parts of her fingers that had been cut off in the accident. Nunez’s complaint alleges that she was not transfered quickly enough […]
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ProPublica’s Pharm Payoff for Doctors Database — Who’s Local?
The nonprofit investigative reporting outfit ProPublica released yet another awesome project today, this time centered on the financial relationships between drug companies and medical professionals — the arguably unseemly, the blatantly sleazy and perhaps, in some cases, the actually illegal. Titled “Dollars for Docs,” the package includes a story that runs down current lawsuits charging that companies were […]
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The Mad As Hell Doctors Are Coming
When TV newscaster Howard Beale stands up in the 1976 film Network and yells, “I’m as mad as hell, and I’m not going to take this anymore!” it propels him into the role of a proselytizing demagogue — a half-mad sage who dares to speak the truth about a hypocritical and irrational world. His manic […]
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Did You Suffer An Overdose?
In this week’s Journal we write about the absconding of Dr. Fran Day from her medical practice in Eureka. She left without giving proper written notice to all of her patients and, apparently, she took their medical records with her. While it may or may not be related to her disappearance, Dr. Day has been […]