“Aging Population Will Demand More Medical Care - San Diego Business Journal” plus 3 more

Aging Population Will Demand More Medical Care - San Diego Business Journal
Integrating a vibration exercise studio: Adding a profit center - Chiropractic Economics
Lawsuit raises questions about deal in which union gets dues from baby ... - detnews.com
Many born, left in hospitals - Columbus Dispatch

Aging Population Will Demand More Medical Care - San Diego Business Journal

Posted: 28 Sep 2009 02:16 PM PDT

In the next 20 years, San Diego County will need to train as many as 209,000 health care workers to assist doctors, nurses and dentists and provide other behind-the-scenes care as millions of baby boomers reach retirement, according to a newly released report.

The California Wellness Foundation study, called Help Wanted: Will Californians Miss Out on a Billion-Dollar Growth Industry? evaluates a growing statewide demand for allied health care workers such as X-ray technicians, medical assistants, home health aides and laboratory assistants.

The study, released Sept. 22, casts doubt on the states ability to train enough qualified workers by 2030. That marks the year when the number of Californians 65 years old or older will more than double to 9 million, and health workers reaching retirement will create new job openings in the field. The combination will lead to a larger demand for care and fewer trained professionals to serve them, according to the report.

Californias education system stands to produce 634,000 health care workers over the next 20 years, said Brad Kemp, the reports lead researcher and a regional director at Beacon Economics. Even those graduates wont be enough to meet the demands of these rapidly growing workers.

Out-Of-State Supply

Altogether, California will require 988,000 allied health workers by 2030, but the states education system will only have the capacity to train two-thirds of those, according to the report. To fill the gap, the report says out-of-state workers will likely fill one out of every three allied health positions.

You simply cant run a health care clinic or hospital without these folks, said Gary Yates, CEO of The California Wellness Foundation.

Yates said there simply arent enough accredited health education programs available, partly because of the restrictions placed on teaching programs. Small instructor-student ratios and high costs associated with teaching on high-tech equipment make offering classes a challenge, he said.

As a result, they often become the first on the chopping block when community colleges face budget cuts, he said.

Gary Moss, a labor market intelligence specialist with the San Diego Workforce Partnership, says the organization has been appealing to Sacramento lawmakers to help ease various restrictions placed on career training in the health care field.

Somewhere along the line we have to look at trying to increase the class sizes, he said.

Other issues, he said, include a need for better screening of applicants to protect against drop-out rates, and restrictions on holding nighttime classes later than 8 p.m.

Earning Power

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Integrating a vibration exercise studio: Adding a profit center - Chiropractic Economics

Posted: 28 Sep 2009 01:48 PM PDT

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Lawsuit raises questions about deal in which union gets dues from baby ... - detnews.com

Posted: 21 Sep 2009 08:27 AM PDT

Our Editorials

A free-market think tank has filed suit accusing state government of helping to organize baby sitters so the union can reap dues from federal day care subsidy checks. If the allegations are true, it's a con perpetrated on taxpayers.

The suit, contending that the arrangement violates the state Constitution and labor laws, was filed last week by the Mackinac Center. The suit says that the state, through the Department of Human Services, essentially set up a shell agency that a newly created union could bargain against to gain the dues. The suit wants Human Services to stop deducting the dues.

The state provides about $382 million in federal child day care subsidies to parents, the center notes. The money is paid directly to child care providers that the parents designate. The parents hire and fire the day care providers.

Because of this, they are independent business people, not state employees, the center's lawsuit contends. However, the state agreed to set up something called the Michigan Home Based Child Care Council, which then agreed to a contract with a union called Child Care Providers Together-Michigan, a joint operation of the United Auto Workers and the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees.

The Michigan Employment Relations Commission conducted a unionization vote by mail, and the majority of the 6,000 or so respondents, out of about 40,000 child care providers, agreed to unionization, the suit states.

All of this, the suit contends, is illegal. The plaintiffs in the suit are two Petoskey women who provide child day care out of their homes and who say they were unaware of the union election or the fact that they had become union members until they received notices that dues were being subtracted from their subsidy checks starting this year.

The amounts they lose from their checks are minuscule, but the center estimates that the union will get about $3.7 million this year from all 40,000 day care providers. The union didn't respond to a call for comment, though its Web site says it has won increases in the subsidy checks for the providers.

Patrick Wright, the lawyer for the Petoskey women, notes that the collective bargaining agreement itself states that the raises are contingent on the Legislature appropriating them, since the Michigan Home Based Child Care Council doesn't have any money of its own.

So if the union can't really deliver more money without an appropriation from the Legislature, what do the child care providers get for their dues?

Money is scarce in Lansing, even for child care. Even if it is legal, this arrangement indicates the Granholm administration served the interests of a union at the expense of taxpayers.

Many born, left in hospitals - Columbus Dispatch

Posted: 28 Sep 2009 08:40 AM PDT

A young woman conceals her pregnancy, gives birth alone and then feels desperate.

The image of a panicked new mother on the verge of abandoning or killing her baby is often invoked by those who support safe-haven laws as a way to save infants from harm.

But in Ohio and elsewhere, it appears to be just as likely -- and possibly more so -- that laws designed to permit the anonymous, legal abandonment of infants are being used by women who deliver in hospitals and leave without their children.

Some say that's OK because the babies remain safe, but others worry that the practice is short on safeguards and rife with potential consequences.

"I don't think these are the cases that safe havens were intended for," said Linda Spears, vice president of policy for the Child Welfare League of America. "We are very concerned that these laws are not responsive to the problems. We urge a lot of caution and a lot of care."

Lucas County Children Services in Toledo has handled six cases since Ohio's Safe Havens law took effect in 2002, Executive Director Dean Sparks said. All were infants born in hospitals and left there by mothers who claimed their right to legal abandonment without fear of prosecution.

"I've always had a huge problem with this," Sparks said. "I don't believe these are Safe Havens (cases). We already have the option for mothers to surrender babies for adoption -- they've been able to do that for 100 years."

One difference between the options is timing.

Under Ohio law, a parent who wants to have a child adopted must wait at least 72 hours after birth before signing the forms to voluntarily relinquish parental rights. Permanent surrender, which requires court approval, also requires a three-day wait.

The idea is to make sure that the mother is sure.

But safe-haven statutes, created to head off dire action and remove the threat of criminal prosecution, have no mandated wait, even if they play out in hospital wards instead of at police or fire stations.

"With Safe Havens, she can make a decision that cuts her out of her child's life forever while still under the influence of delivery-room medications," said a Grove City-area resident whose 20-year-old daughter surrendered a newborn at Doctors Hospital last month.

"There was no counseling requirement," said the woman, who asked that her name be withheld so that her daughter isn't identified. "My daughter wouldn't have harmed the baby. The baby wasn't in danger."

Franklin County Children Services says the 6-week-old girl remains in foster care. The baby's mother now is fighting to establish her parental rights so she can proceed with a private, open adoption.

"I'd never heard of Safe Havens," she said. "I actually thought it was a Christian adoption program."

Spears and Sparks said that safe-haven surrenders can permanently cut relatives out of the picture or deprive a child of family and medical information that becomes important later.

"With a surrender, you have disconnected a child, perhaps unnecessarily, from other family members who may have been willing to care for that child," Spears said.

Determining the scope and nature of safe-haven surrenders is difficult because data collection nationwide has been poor.

Franklin County documented three Safe Havens babies this year, two of which took place in the hospital where the babies were delivered.

Cuyahoga County has had two this year, both in the hospitals where the babies were born.

Neither of those counties, the state's most populous, could provide details on how and where all of their Safe Havens cases have occurred since 2002.

The state doesn't know, either. The Ohio Department of Job and Family Services cannot provide a statewide breakdown on how Safe Havens cases occur, because it doesn't keep track, said Jennifer Justice, chief of the Bureau of Family Services.

The raw numbers it reports have varied from 52 to more than 70 since the law went into effect. Justice said the discrepancy probably is due to a new child-welfare computer system.

In Michigan, a large majority of the 76 babies given up under the state's "Safe Delivery" law have been born in hospitals and left there, said Jean Hoffman, a consultant assigned to the program.

In Kentucky, 22 of 24 babies given up since 2002 under that state's safe-haven law were surrendered in the hospitals where they were born.

"That was something that the creators of the law did not intend," said Anya Armes Weber, a spokeswoman for the Kentucky Cabinet for Health and Family Services. "But at least the baby is safe."

Hoffman said the best way to avoid problems with safe-haven abandonment is to encourage adoption when possible. "This law is really supposed to be a last resort," she said.

Eric Fenner, executive director of Franklin County Children Services, said he strongly supports the law because its benefits outweigh risks.

Women in the hospital should be able to invoke Safe Havens just as those who give birth elsewhere or give up an infant at some other point during the 30-day window permitted under the law, he said. Those in the hospital should not be seen as trying to bypass legal processes, he added.

"Quite frankly, I find all of this conversation disturbing. I don't think this decision is as simple as one would think," Fenner said. "And even if the Safe Havens law saves one life, it's worth it."

Columbus lawyer Thomas Taneff, who handles many adoptions, said some women incapable of parenting need the option that safe-haven laws afford. "I can see a mom saying, 'I don't have the physical, mental or emotional energy to jump through all these hoops. I'm walking,' " he said.

"I think that this law then steps in to decriminalize her behavior."

Spears said the central but unanswerable question remains: Were the babies surrendered in hospitals at risk of harm? Infanticide is rare, and states generally don't compare it against rates of unsafe and safe-haven abandonment.

"Most mothers aren't going to leave a child to die," Spears said. "They're going to be afraid. And they probably need help."

On one point, the sides agree: The nation needs reliable data on safe-haven laws, which now are in effect in all 50 states.

"The intent is good as gold, but are these laws responsive?" Spears said. "We don't have enough information to know."

rprice@dispatch.com

Some say as long as babies are safe it doesn't matter that they were born in hospitals. Others say moms who invoke Safe Haven in hospitals miss out on counseling and adoption.