Being female or rich offers no defence against the ill heath caused by smoking, according to a new study.
Researchers from Glasgow University and NHS Scotland looked at the impact of smoking on the survival rates of 15,000 men and women over a 28-year period.
They found smokers of all social classes had a much higher risk of premature death than even the poorest non-smokers.
The survival advantage women normally have over men was also cancelled Read the rest of this entry »

LAS VEGAS—University Medical Center officials are expected to present new contracts with medical groups and health care providers that would save Clark County about $1.3 million per year.
The hospital has been renegotiating the contracts to help ease its $39 million in debt.
Hospital officials say the new contracts would save the hospital $9.5 million over the lives of the contracts, between 4 percent and 20 percent on each arrangement.
Read the rest of this entry »

CHICAGO, Feb 25 (Reuters) – A former municipal banker at
Bear, Stearns & Co, pleaded guilty on Wednesday to fraud
involving hospital financing that is part of a wide-ranging
probe of government corruption in Illinois.
P. Nicholas Hurtgen, who had been set to go on trial in
U.S. District Court next month, pleaded guilty to one count of
aiding and abetting a scheme to defraud Illinois’ health
facilities planning board, which was weighing a proposal Read the rest of this entry »

WEDNESDAY, Feb. 18 (HealthDay News) — New tobacco company marketing campaigns that target women and girls are the most aggressive in more than a decade, a new report concludes.
That marketing needs to be curbed by giving the U.S. Food and Drug Administration authority over tobacco products, according to the report, released Wednesday by a coalition of major U.S. public health organizations.
Campaigns launched in recent years by the nation’s two Read the rest of this entry »

WATSONVILLE – For the greater part of 2008, Dr. Chris O’Grady closed his doors to new Medicare patients.
He was already caring for so many elderly patients in his Watsonville-based family practice that he was often going home at 10 p.m.
Medicare paid him far less than he considered fair – and now the government was threatening to cut the rates again.
Many of the county’s primary care doctors have struggled before reaching the same conclusion.
Read the rest of this entry »

After 11 years at the helm, Marc Smith, president and chief executive of the
, announced his retirement Thursday.
Smith will step down Jan. 4, 2010, after serving as the president and CEO of MHA and its affiliated companies since January 1998.
, an affiliation of the Kansas and Missouri hospital associations, since 1999.
Smith led the association to publish the first statewide report on hospital quality in 2004, ahead of mandated reporting Read the rest of this entry »

A manager at the Peanut Corp. of America’s plant in Plainview, Texas, said he repeatedly complained to the company owner,
, and the Texas Department of Health about unsanitary conditions at the plant.
Kenneth Kendrick said in an exclusive interview today with “Good Morning America” that when he worked at the Texas plant in 2006, he told Parnell about a rodent infestation and a leaky roof.
“Water, particularly anything leaking off a roof, and Read the rest of this entry »

SUNRISE, Fla.
,
Feb. 19
, the only
swim school with indoor heated pools, has announced today the opening
of a new location in Cutler Ridge at Southland mall serving the
Miami, Florida
.
British Swim School teaches children and adults how to swim, starting with
babies as young as 3 months old. With 25 years of experience,
courtesy of British Swim School has become more affordable and
easier.
and has taught thousands of kids and Read the rest of this entry »