Healthy Living Ways

Hospitals that have been designated as “stroke centers” may provide just as good care on the weekend as on weekdays, new findings suggest. That’s important because previous studies have hinted that people who come to the hospital after having a stroke don’t do as well if they’re admitted over the weekend, when nurses and specialists might be stretched extra thin.

“This is a big concern among the physician community because we all know that not every hospital has the capacity to treat those patients on the weekend,” said Dr. Ying Xian, who studies stroke care at the Duke Clinical Research Institute in Durham, North Carolina and wasn’t involved in the new study. “What is most amazing in this study is that they show that comprehensive stroke centers have the capacity to (eliminate) those disparities in terms of weekend status,” he told Reuters Health.
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Shortages of vital drugs, particularly cancer-fighting medication, have raised concerns in the United States, where regulators often have to race to try to find replacements. A recent report by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) found that the number of important treatments that are difficult or impossible to find nearly tripled from 61 to 178 between 2005 and 2010.

Most of the rare medications are for hospital use, including sterile injections, intravenous treatments, anesthetics and antibiotics. The products include both name-brand and generic drugs. “FDA hears from patients and also from healthcare professionals and organizations about the terrible impact the shortages have had,” spokeswoman Shelly Burgess said.
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