From a violent patient allowed to roam free to a pregnancy case that violated policy at every turn and nurses who falsified documents to cover their mistakes, a Milwaukee Journal Sentinel investigation exposed a raft of problems at the Milwaukee County Mental Health Complex, home to the county’s most vulnerable residents. Reporters Meg Kissinger and [...]
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InvestigateWest:Cruise Ships Dump Waste To Dodge Laws
August 18th, 2010 
alecia An InvestigateWest report on the billion dollar cruise ship industry in the Washington-Alaska cruise market found that most ships avoid tougher state regulations and dump their waste in Canadian waters between the two states, despite state efforts to adopt stricter standards for sewage and wastewater discharge.
Medicare billing fraud points to double-standard in care
August 5th, 2010 Beth The Dallas Morning News published a two-day installment in its ongoing investigation into allegations of Medicare billing fraud and poor patient care at one of the nation’s leading medical schools and its teaching hospital in Dallas. Among The News‘ findings: Faculty at UT Southwestern were letting resident doctors-in-training treat the hospital’s mostly poor, minority patients with little [...]
Food service at stadiums often riddled with health code violations
July 28th, 2010 Beth A story by Paula Lavigne, of ESPN, reveals some unappetizing realities about food service at the 107 stadiums used by the MLB, NBA, NFL, and NHL across the country. Through a review of inspection records from local health departments, Lavigne revealed that at “30 of the venues (28 percent), more than half of the concession [...]
Despite no data to prove case, NY institutions receive more state dollars for residents with alleged criminal backgrounds
July 20th, 2010 coulterj Institutions for developmentally disabled New Yorkers have taken a new approach to care: locked units for people who officials say have had a brush with the law, according to an investigation by Mary Beth Pfeiffer of the Poughkeepsie Journal. In Part 2 of the ongoing series, “Money Pit/Money Makers” the newspaper revealed that the state [...]
Secondary chemo exposure a threat to healthcare workers
July 12th, 2010 coulterj An InvestigateWest investigation revealed that the same powerful chemotherapy drugs that have saved hundreds of thousands of patients’ lives for decades have at the same time taken a potentially deadly toll on the health of hospital and clinic workers who handled them. The federal government, despite knowledge of the potential risks, continues to let these [...]
FEMA trailers reappearing in Gulf to house oil spill workers
July 2nd, 2010 Beth FEMA trailers are appearing in the Gulf region to serve as temporary housing for workers involved in cleanup of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill, according to an investigation by Ian Urbina of The New York Times. “The trailers were discovered to have such high levels of formaldehyde that the government banned them from ever being [...]
Cradle of Secrets series
July 1st, 2010 Beth An six-part investigation by The Charlotte (N.C.) Observer “examined autopsies for more than 550 baby deaths from 2004-2008 that were classified as SIDS, a category that means natural and unpreventable.” The investigation revealed that at least one well-known and potentially fatal risk factor was present 69 percent of those deaths.
Institutionalized individuals are “cash cows” for the state of New York
June 28th, 2010 Beth Nine institutions for New York’s developmentally disabled get nearly $5,000 per person per day in Medicaid reimbursements. This is ten times what they received in 1991 when the state vowed that they would shut the sprawling, inefficient centers by 2000. According to a report by Mary Beth Pfeiffer, of the Poughkeepsie (N.Y.) Journal, the state [...]
Psychiatric hospital strained by patient needs, funding shortfalls
June 17th, 2010 Beth An investigation by The Charlotte (N.C.) Observer found that some dangerously ill patients who visit Charlotte’s psychiatric hospital are instead given medicine and sent home – sometimes with disastrous results. With perennial overcrowding at the county’s 66-bed psychiatric facility, few who visit the hospital’s emergency department are admitted. The result: patients like Kenny Chapman don’t [...]
