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Healthcare workers

Health Workers, Patients, Activists Unite Against Milei’s Healthcare Cuts

Over 100 workers’ collectives, health groups, and organizations mobilized across Argentina on Thursday, February 27, in protest against President Javier Milei’s devastating policies. A central march took place in Buenos Aires, denouncing the purposeful underfunding of the health system, deteriorating working conditions, and pressures on public hospitals. Among the demonstrators were health workers, patients, and the Mothers of Plaza de Mayo. “Health is a fundamental human right, and defending it is the responsibility of all society,” organizers declared ahead of the protest.

How Healthcare Workers Are Defending Transgender Patients

In the five years Quinn has worked as a licensed counselor, they have seen the astonishing positive impact that gender-affirming care can have on young patients’ lives. “You talk to these kids, and they can have such complicated experiences with depression and social anxiety, and then you start providing hormones and gender-affirming care, and you see this dramatic difference in how they are able to engage with the world,” explained Quinn, who is going by a pseudonym. “It’s so clear that this is what helps our trans young people to be contributing to society and fully themselves, to meet expected life milestones in ways that are healthy, and connect with community in good ways.”

Over 160 Gaza Health Workers Remain Trapped In Israeli Torture Camps

At least 160 healthcare workers from Gaza, including more than 20 doctors, are believed to still be inside Israeli detention facilities where torture and rape are routine, The Guardian reported on 25 February. According to Healthcare Workers Watch (HWW), a Palestinian medical NGO, 162 medical staff remain in Israeli detention, including some of Gaza’s most senior physicians, while 24 others remain missing after being abducted by Israeli forces from hospitals during the war. Another 179 were previously detained but have been released.

Healthcare Workers Must Organize Collectively To Fight Trump’s Attacks

We are a little over a week into the second Trump presidency, and it is clear: his administration’s policies are a direct assault on health and well-being. From freezing critical research funding and blocking access to Medicaid, to expanding ICE’s reach into hospitals and rolling back environmental protections, these attacks will cost lives. As we have discussed, trans and nonbinary people will face increased barriers to care, immigrants will be deterred from seeking medical attention, and entire communities will be left at risk of untreated illnesses and potentially preventable outbreaks.

Nurses And Doctors Are On Strike At Eight Oregon Hospitals

Declaring that understaffing had them “running on empty,” 5,000 nurses, doctors, midwives, and nurse practitioners walked off the job January 10 in an open-ended strike at Providence Health and Services, the dominant hospital chain in the Pacific Northwest. The strikers work at eight hospitals plus women’s health clinics across Oregon. They’re demanding proper staffing, affordable health insurance, and competitive pay that can attract and retain seasoned workers. “I’ve been with Providence for over 30 years, and I have seen what’s changed,” said medical-surgical nurse Kim Martin at Providence Portland Medical Center.

Healthcare Workers Tell Congress To Halt Military Aid To Israel

Doctors Against Genocide (DAG) has called for the US to halt aid to Israel after their colleagues were detained last month by Israeli forces in the Gaza Strip. DAG, a global coalition of health care workers, mobilized more than 50 medical professionals on Capitol Hill to advocate for the release of Dr. Hussam Abu Safiya, the director of Kamal Adwan Hospital in northern Gaza, who was detained by Israeli forces along with others during a Dec. 27 raid on the health facility. The delegation visited members of the House of Representatives and Senate on Wednesday to advocate for urgent congressional action on the humanitarian crisis in Gaza.

Hospitals Are Understaffed; Could Co-Ops Be An Answer?

America’s healthcare workforce has been the subject of renewed attention and anxiety since the Covid pandemic began. The crisis only deepened projected shortages that were already set to plague the sector as the country will need hundreds of thousands more physicians and nurses in the decade ahead to meet demand. But that’s only part of the problem. Roughly 60% of America’s healthcare workforce is employed in what the industry calls ​“allied health” roles: medical assistants, technicians, physical therapists and others who make up much of the background infrastructure of American medicine.

Kamal Adwan Hospital Chief Taken To Notorious Israeli Torture Camp

Director of Kamal Adwan Hospital Dr Hussam Abu Safia has been taken to Israel's notorious torture camp, Sde Teiman, following his abduction by Israeli forces at the Kamal Adwan Hospital in north Gaza, CNN reported on 30 December. Dr Abu Safia has not been seen publicly since his abduction from the hospital during an Israeli raid on 27 December that caused the hospital to cease functioning. Medical staff told CNN that Israeli forces started a fire in the hospital and that they were all rounded up outside and ordered to remove their clothes over the course of several hours before being forced to leave.

The Defiant Last Stand Of The Doctors Of Kamal Adwan Hospital

Patients are trying to sleep inside the Kamal Adwan Hospital in the northern Gaza Strip. But just outside, they can see a remote-controlled robot carrying explosives sent by the Israeli army. It’s only a matter of time before the bomb is detonated. Tanks and bulldozers move around the hospital and in front of its entrances all day long. The sounds of explosions and bullets do not stop. Inside the hospital, there is a constant state of panic. With each new explosion or round of fire, patients flee from one wing of the hospital to another, crowding in the narrow hospital corridors to sleep like sardines, hoping that they will be safe.

She Was Brutally Killed Before She Could Write Her Story

On 8 August 2024, a 31-year-old doctor at the RG Kar Medical College in Kolkata (West Bengal, India) finished her 36-hour shift at the hospital, ate dinner with her colleagues, and went to the college’s seminar hall to rest before her next shift. The next day, shortly after being reported missing, she was found in a seminar room, her lifeless body displaying all the signs of terrible violence. Since Indian law forbids revealing the names of victims of sexual crimes, her name will not appear in this newsletter. This young doctor’s story is by no means an isolated incident: every fifteen minutes, a woman in India reports a rape. In 2022, at least 31,000 rapes were reported, a 12% increase from 2020.

Healthcare Workers Need To Defend Gaza Solidarity Encampments

As the genocide in Gaza continues, people throughout the U.S. have mobilized in their workplaces and on the streets in solidarity with Palestine. Healthcare workers have organized, among other sectors, as it became more and more evident how there’s always money for war and genocide, but never for things like healthcare. But even as Israel’s onslaught has continued and sectors of vanguard are still in the streets, the larger sectors of the masses mobilizing had begun to wane. Now, though, students mobilizing to form encampments on campuses around the world represents a shift in the movement.

Has The Global Healthcare Workforce Crisis Finally Reached A Tipping Point?

There is a global healthcare workforce crisis. That healthcare workers are underpaid, overworked and physically and emotionally stressed is widely recognised in many countries. The wider crisis across many nations is well-documented by unions and international organisations. This week, a decision was made which promises concerted action to end the crisis. Health ministers and ministries from almost 50 countries signed up to a commitment to “address health workforce shortages by concerted action to train, retain, and improve the working conditions of health and care workers”.

Stop The Crackdown On Pro-Palestinian Healthcare Voices

As Israel continues its ongoing genocidal onslaught on Gaza, over 8,500 have been killed and countless injured. Israel just bombed Gaza’s largest refugee camp multiple times, killing hundreds. According to UNICEF, Israel’s assault is killing or injuring at least 400 children every day. The state continues to cut off Gaza’s ability to communicate with the outside world as it ramps up its bombing campaign, targeting healthcare facilities and healthcare workers in its campaign. After bombing Al-Ahli hospital (and then lying about the bombing), Israel directed those at Al Quds hospital to evacuate, then began bombing the area around the hospital — 100 medical workers, 500 patients, and 14,000 refugees were inside.

Healthcare Workers Are Standing With Palestine

With over 7,000 Palestinians killed and over 14,000 injured, the humanitarian crisis continues to unfold in Gaza. Some parents have resorted to writing the names of their children on their children’s bodies in fear they will otherwise be unidentifiable if they are killed in a bombing attack. The Healthcare Ministry of Gaza has declared that the healthcare system in the region has completely collapsed and that all hospitals in Gaza will run out of fuel and necessary medical supplies. An AP news report describes the scenes inside of hospitals a “nightmare.” Hospitals report running out of basic items like pain medications, antibiotics, bandages, and antiseptics.

To Fix Short-Staffing, Raise Wages, PeaceHealth Strikers Say

One of the largest non-nurse health care strikes in Pacific Northwest history began at 6:30 a.m. this morning, shedding light on skilled workers who often get overlooked. We’re demanding that PeaceHealth, a Jesuit-run health system, raise wages and fix critically short staffing—two issues that are closely related. The strikers are 1,300 workers at two hospitals in southwest Washington: PeaceHealth Southwest in Vancouver, and PeaceHealth St. John in nearby Longview. The strike will last five days; workers will return to work October 28. PeaceHealth had announced that it would cut off health insurance if the strike continued into November.
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