COVID-19 relief was meant to give a lifeline to hospitals, especially the small, rural facilities that struggled to stay open before 2020. But in states like Oklahoma, problems created by confusing guidelines could cause harm long after the pandemic.
Mabel Garcia went to the only emergency room in Texas County, Oklahoma, which didn’t have a drug for heart attacks and strokes. She was airlifted to a larger hospital that gave her the drug she needed, but it was too late. She suffered brain damage.
by Brianna Bailey, The Frontier, and Maya Miller, ProPublica
Rural Oklahoma communities are desperate to protect their vulnerable hospitals and hand the reins to management companies that say they’re turnaround experts. Instead some companies failed the hospitals, bled them dry and expedited their demise.
At least 13 hospitals in Oklahoma have closed or experienced added financial distress under the management of private companies. Some companies charged hefty management fees, promising to infuse millions of dollars that never materialized.
Eight nurses are the overwhelming majority of employees who remain at Haskell County Community Hospital in Oklahoma. The future of the 25-bed hospital, which has been whittled down to operating only an emergency room since 2019, is increasingly grim.
A climate scientist spent years trying to get people to pay attention to the disaster ahead. His wife is exhausted. His older son thinks there’s no future. And nobody but him will use the outdoor toilet he built to shrink his carbon footprint.
A much-needed check-in with health care reporter Caroline Chen as we examine the toll COVID-19 has taken on the country and what to expect from a new president.
Criminal charges and a class-action settlement may seem like the last chapter in Flint’s story, but many of the most important reforms at the root of the city’s water crisis remain undone.
White supremacists are building international networks to spread their violent ideology. Efforts at transatlantic counterterrorism cooperation hit an obstacle: the politics of the Trump Administration.
The CDC says health facilities should report unused and spoiled COVID-19 vaccines, but many are failing to do so. At a time when there aren’t enough shots to meet demand, significant numbers may be going in the trash.
by Ryan Gabrielson, Caroline Chen and Mollie Simon
How NYPD officers continue to use chokeholds — which can be deadly and are explicitly prohibited by the department — on civilians, while officers with substantiated claims of abuse go without any meaningful punishment.
by Topher Sanders, ProPublica, and Yoav Gonen, THE CITY, video by Lucas Waldron, ProPublica
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