Health category, Page 77

Federal and state officials have eased up on some of their guidelines for coronavirus-related travel restrictions. On Monday, the Pennsylvania Department of Health removed Arizona from its list of travel restrictions originally announced on July 2. No new states were added. The states that remain on Pennsylvania’s travel restriction list...

View Gisele Barreto Fetterman through the lens of social media, and one might assume she is among the world’s most upbeat people. But those close to the lieutenant governor’s wife know she’s waged a lifelong war against chronic pain, with medical marijuana being an effective form of treatment. She felt...

Allegheny Health Network announced its newest covid-19 testing schedule for its mobile clinic and community sites. AHN’s mobile clinic will visit the following locations from 10:30 a.m. till 4 p.m.:Wednesday: Hazelwood Family Health Center in Hazelwood at 4915 Second AvenueThursday: Alma Illery Medical Center in Homewood at 7227 Hamilton AvenueMonday:...

FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. — Their final breaths are tormented. Rublas Ruiz has seen too many of them — the last gasps of 17 men and women who died of the coronavirus. A 41-year-old ICU nurse in Miami’s Kendall Regional Medical Center, Ruiz has witnessed the desperate, pleading, wide-eyed, barely there...

A mask mandate, a no-smoking policy and a suspension of indoor dining were among the measures Rivers Casino on Pittsburgh’s North Shore took to mitigate the spread of the coronavirus when it reopened in early July. That same week, the World Health Organization acknowledged airborne transmission of the virus, particularly...

UPMC East in Monroeville said Friday it is expanding its emergency department and doubling its capacity to accommodate patients. The hospital will begin using the new space on Aug. 24. The $24 million emergency department expansion adds 30,000 square feet to UPMC East. With the renovation, the number of private...

The Allegheny County Health Department is catching up on covid-19 hospitalization data that accumulated in the month of July. At a Wednesday news conference, Health Director Dr. Debra Bogen explained why this week, the county dashboard stopped providing daily counts of the number of past and present hospitalizations. During the...

NEW YORK — Pharmacists in all 50 states are now allowed to give childhood vaccinations under a new directive aimed at preventing future outbreaks of measles and other preventable diseases. Alex Azar, the head of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, took the step using emergency powers he...

With flu season rapidly approaching and covid-19 still spreading, health experts say it’s imperative — and safe — to get a flu shot this year. Dr. Marc Itskowitz, an internal medicine physician with Allegheny Health Network, said he recommends the flu vaccine this and every year. “It gives the immune...

The first signs of trouble were unmistakably odd. It wasn’t like Chad Amond to forget the name of someone he knew as they greeted. Not once but twice. And it certainly wasn’t like him to ask his wife, Amy, when she brought home a new type of his favorite ginger...

Mayo Clinic researchers reported a strong hint that blood plasma from COVID-19 survivors helps other patients recover, but it’s not proof and some experts worry if, amid clamor for the treatment, they’ll ever get a clear answer. More than 64,000 patients in the U.S. have been given convalescent plasma, a...

University of Pittsburgh researchers are gathering the personal accounts of patients who have recovered from covid-19 as part of an ongoing project called Story Booth. The archive of stories will be used as a tool to promote patient-centered outcome research — a mentality that focuses attention on patient experience and...

Slippery Rock and McKeesport Area school districts have filed lawsuits against the makers of Juul vape products, alleging their marketing tactics have created an epidemic of harmful e-cigarette use among students. The districts are the fifth and sixth area districts to file federal lawsuits against the company. Lawsuits filed by...

Despite recent plunges in hospital revenues statewide, the covid-19 pandemic has not thwarted Highmark Health from strengthening its overall financial position and increasing its reach across Pennsylvania and neighboring states, Highmark CEO David Holmberg said Thursday. “We believe that we are very well-positioned for the long term,” Holmberg told reporters...

Seasonal allergies are plaguing Western Pennsylvania again this year with ragweed pollen on the rise. Dr. Thomas Mertz, an allergist at Allergy and Asthma Associates of Pittsburgh, said this allergy season seems to be severe as mid-August arrives. Mertz blamed poor air quality and lots of pollen for the severe...

NEW YORK — Riverdale Nursing Home in the Bronx appears, on paper, to have escaped the worst of the coronavirus pandemic, with an official state count of just four deaths in its 146-bed facility. The truth, according to the home, is far worse: 21 dead, most transported to hospitals before...

Coronavirus infections among U.S. children grew 40% in the last half of July, according to a report from the American Academy of Pediatrics and the Children’s Hospital Association, bringing the total number of child infections to 8.8% of all U.S. cases. The report, which aggregates data from 49 states, comes...

WASHINGTON — After months of remaining vague about its plans to distribute a covid-19 vaccine, the Trump administration is quietly piloting distribution working groups, CQ Roll Call has learned. The plan, which has not been made public, was confirmed by four state health departments. Federal officials from the Centers for...

An Allegheny County Court of Common Pleas recent decision means UPMC cannot build a hospital one mile down the road from an Allegheny Health Network hospital in Jefferson Hills — for now. Judge Joseph James dismissed an appeal of AUUE Inc., an affiliate of UPMC, after the Jefferson Hills Zoning...

Talk. Kenneth Miller has heard a lot of it since March when night and day, people all around him began dying at Brighton Rehabilitation and Wellness Center. There has been talk of change, talk of state and federal probes into how the aging, 589-bed Beaver County facility that one local...

Evelyn Gilbert, 53, began her five-day dose of hydroxychloroquine while battling covid-19 in a room with three other infected residents at Brighton Rehabilitation and Wellness Center. Kenneth Miller, 66, who had not shown symptoms of the virus, was jolted awake by a Brighton staffer urging him to sign a consent...

As death became a constant at Brighton Rehabilitation and Wellness Center in mid-April, so did certain daily rituals, according to some of the more than dozen residents, families and current and former staff members interviewed during a Trib investigation. Family members’ frantic pleas for updates about loved ones locked down...

A state-appointed manager will oversee operations at the troubled Brighton Rehabilitation and Wellness Center at least through the end of the year, signaling some consistency after months of uncertainty about who is in charge. State officials confirmed Allaire Health Services, installed in mid-May to temporarily manage the facility where 73...