Political commentary/genealogical interests

Tom Waters, candidate for election to the Town Board of Pahrump, Nevada has started his new blog. You can check it out at http://tomwatersthoughts.blogspot.com/.

Tom’s campaign website is located at http://tomwaters4townboard.com/default.html.

You can find out more than you ever wanted to know about Tom on his campaign website. If you live in Pahrump and if you vote I’d suggest you look over both his campaign website and his new blog.

I understand Tom will be using his blog on a regular basis expressing his views on his campaign for election to Pahrump’s Town Board in November.

He will be getting one of my votes along with Carolene Endersby (also a candidate for Pahrump’s Town Board) and Laurayne Murray (candidate for Nye County Commissioner – District V).

I invite you to stop by Tom’s blog and leave him a comment. He’d love to hear from you.

I get a kick out of the Mule Lick, Nevada Facebook page. The Chamber of Commerce just installed a new sign on Mercury Highway at the John Wayne Bobbitt Cutoff.

Wonder where that is.

President Barack Obama flies to Las Vegas to stump for Democratic Senate Leader Harry Reid.

Obama calls Sharron Angles ideas “old worn out” theories.

See the video on the Las Vegas Sun.

Video of St. Rose Dominican Hospitals CEO Rod Davis on the Sun’s hospital care project.

St. Rose Dominican Hospitals in Las Vegas take a positive step. They are reacting to the recent investigation of the Las Vegas Sun. The investigation revealed 969 instances in 2008 and 2009 in which patients suffered preventable injuries, infections or other harm in Las Vegas hospitals.

Hospitals have “fought to keep secret” information about such events, the Sun reports.

St. Rose CEO Rod Davis is the first hospital executive to come out in favor of greater transparency.

Davis pledges to post on his hospitals’ website cases of preventable harm — known as “adverse” events — that occur at the three St. Rose Dominican Hospitals: Siena, Rose de Lima and San Martin.

They have never been made public before. There is some indication that other Las Vegas hospitals will follow the lead of the St. Rose Dominican Hospitals.

This is a good thing–for us members of the public.

Nevada continued to rank second in the nation in May for elevated levels of home loan delinquencies and foreclosures.

[Source: Las Vegas Sun]

Here are the 20 most economically stressed counties with populations of at least 25,000 and their May 2010 Stress scores, according to The Associated Press Economic Stress Index:

1. Imperial County, Calif., 31.74
2. Yuma County, Ariz., 29.14
3. Lyon County, Nev., 27.3
4. Merced County, Calif., 24.55
5. Nye County, Nev., 24.45
6. Sutter County, Calif., 23.93
7. Stanislaus County, Calif., 23.6
8. Yuba County, Calif., 23.59
9. Clark County, Nev., 23.24
10. San Benito County, Calif., 23.12
11. San Joaquin County, Calif., 22.66
12. Luna County, N.M., 22.42
13. Lake County, Calif., 21.59
14. Riverside County, Calif., 21.23
15. Kern County, Calif., 21.14
16. Madera County, Calif., 20.53
17. San Bernardino, Calif., 20.45
18. Pinal County, Ariz., 20.37
19. Fresno County, Calif., 20.01
20. Lapeer County, Mich., 19.97

[Source: Reno Gazette Journal]

Gawker calls it America’s Worst-Run County: Nye County, Nevada.

Citing the Wall Street Journal, Gawker says it has the entire sordid tale of the management case study that is Nye County.

Looks like everyone and his dog is getting their fill of Pahrump and Nye County, Nevada.

Sheriff Tony DeMeo DA Bob Beckett

It isn’t every day that Pahrump and Nye County makes the Wall Street Journal. The headline in the Journal issue of July 6 heralds “High Noon in Pahrump, Nev.: Sheriff Arrests the District Attorney.” The sub headline reads “The D.A. Chooses Not to File Charges Against Himself, Investigates His Nemesis.”

The article begins “Like a scene from a Western movie, the two top lawmen here are settling their scores in public.” Forging onward the Journal reports the D.A. appointed a special prosecutor “to investigate possible abuses of power by the sheriff’s office and other public officials.” The special prosecutor filed felony charges against deputy sheriff, David Boruchowitz, for arresting Beckett.

The Journal article proceeds to explain the arrest of District Attorney Robert Beckett by Sheriff Tony DeMeo’s deputy for allegedly “misusing public funds.” Then it points out that “…the D.A., refuses to charge himself.”

“[A]fter he (Boruchowitz) was summoned to lock himself in the corrugated metal county jail, he sent out a press release with his own mug shot announcing he had been arrested. A judge later rejected the charges, contending Mr. Beckett didn’t have the power to appoint a special prosecutor. So Mr. Beckett refilled the charges himself.”

The Journal then describes Nye County as “twice the size of New Hampshire…Most of the county is so desolate that for years the military conducted atomic testing here.…Its sparse local economy includes a gold mine and a dairy farm, as well as seven brothels whose fees finance the county’s ambulance services.” Pahrump gets its mention as being 45 minutes from Las Vegas and the “local government struggled to keep up with the proliferation of houses and mini-malls strewn across the desert.”

The Journal characterizes the beef between DeMeo and Beckett this way. “Mr. DeMeo complains that his department arrests people who never get prosecuted. Mr. Beckett contends that some of the sheriff’s cases aren’t solid.”

“I’ve often said they need a mother to stop the fighting,” said Mr. Beckett’s wife, JoDee Beckett. “It’s like two little boys.” [Read more →]

Happy 4th of July to all!

Last Sunday the Las Vegas Sun reported that its analysis of area hospital records identified 969 cases of preventable infections, bone breaks, bed sores and other harm that were not present when the patient was admitted.

In today’s Las Vegas Sun is a report on a meeting between Leslie Johnstone, executive director of the Health Services Coalition; Bill Welch, president of the Nevada Hospital Association; and Assembly Speaker Barbara Buckley for a round-table discussion at the Sun. [Note: The photo above of Johnstone, Welch and Buckley at the round-table was obtained from today’s Sun article]

Yesterday I placed a post here about the Sun’s initial analysis of the hospitals in Las Vegas. Today we’ll take a look at the round-table discussion.

This video records the round-table discussion held.

The Las Vegas Sun has performed a valuable public service by bringing this hospital quality topic into the public’s view.

I have no doubt that the various hospitals themselves wish to provide the best quality of care they possibly can. The information now available from the Sun’s articles on the subject is a start.

Hopefully, we in the public, will benefit from any improvements the current system. Nevada seems to rank in the lowest quartiles in many areas. That, I believe, is largely because of the mindset of so many residents of the state—“I want what I want when I want it but don’t ask me to pay for it.”

That attitude doesn’t help much. There are no free lunches. You get what you are willing to accept.

You can read the NHA ad in the RJ on the NHA website.

NYE—GATEWAY TO NEVADA’S RURALS

By Jack Wood

Las Vegas’ Hospitals

Picking up from last week’s column—the vascular surgeon in Las Vegas was finally able to get me scheduled for the angioplasty medical procedure at Spring Valley Hospital in Las Vegas.

There was no consultation of my consent for the hospital designated by the surgeon for the procedure. Just as well, like most, I really didn’t know much about one hospital as compared to another. I had previously been in Summerlin Hospital overnight some months earlier. I had also undergone another medical procedure at a third hospital, the name of which I cannot recall.

Besides, you either trust your doctor’s judgment or you don’t. Besides, once you are in the medical system you are essentially subject to abide by its schedule, not your own.

The article in the Las Vegas Sun, which prompts this column, didn’t come out until my medical procedure was over. I read it with considerable interest. The Sun had undertaken a two-year investigation into the conditions of hospital care in Las Vegas. They obtained and examined 2.9 million hospital patient records.

“Revealed are the dangers patients have unknowingly encountered as they enter delivery rooms, surgical suites and intensive care units, including thousands of cases of injury, death and deadly infection associated with stays in Las Vegas hospitals” the Sun reports. “A recent study found that Nevada hospitals have the worst rate in the nation of readmissions in the nation, meaning discharged patients needed to return within 30 days to hospitals for additional care.”

Further, the Sun reports, “But the public has not known the scope of the problems, even though the state has been gathering patient data since 1986. The data, gathered primarily for cost-control purposes, are based on individual hospital billing records that state law mandates be collected for the purpose of analysis.”

Nevada hospitals have controlled the release of the information to the public, resulting in “hospital patients having no way of knowing how frequently harmful outcomes occur where they receive their most sensitive health care.”

Such transparency is new and novel in Nevada. As Assembly Speaker Barbara Buckley posed the issue, “Do you have the right to know about the quality of care you’re receiving? I think you do,” she said. “When you buy a car, you can go to Consumer Reports. Isn’t someone’s life worth more than his car? I would think so.”

Makes sense to me. The Sun’s analysis is contained in a revealing table of “preventable harm to patients that occurred at Las Vegas Hospitals” in 2008 and 2009. They found that 969 preventable cases of harm to patients had occurred.

The hospitals examined include Centennial Hills, Desert Springs, Mountain View, North Vista, Saint Rose-Rose de Lima, Saint Rose – San Martin, Saint Rose – Siena, Southern Hills, Spring Valley, Summerlin, Sunrise, UMC and Valley.

In summary it was found there were 21 instances of a foreign object retained after surgery. Seventy-nine (79) state III and IV pressure ulcers occurred. There were 248 falls and trauma. 13 manifestations of poor glycemic control; 57 catheter associated UTI; 475 vascular catheter-associated infections; 15 surgical site infections; and 61 deep vein thrombosis/pulmonary embolism. In all there were 969 instances of preventable harm to patients over the 2008-2009 time frame.

The hospital locations where each of these events occurred in the Sun’s report are:

Centennial Hills…………. 21

Desert Springs………….. 44

Mountain View…………. 81

North Vista………………. 41

St Rose-Rose de Lima…. 53

St Rose-San Martin……. 64

St Rose-Siena…………… 159

Southern Hills…………… 40

Spring Valley…………….. 49

Summerlin……………….. 51

Sunrise……………………. 185

UMC………………………. 119

Valley…………………….. 62

Total:……………………… 969

So, where do you think you might want to go next time you, a family member or friend have to go to a hospital? Centennial Hills? Sunrise? Good luck with your decision.

You are welcome to read more about this and other matters on the Nye-Gateway to Nevada’s Rurals blog at http://nyegateway.com. You can also follow me on Twitter at http://twitter.com/Featheriver.

[Source: Las Vegas Sun]