McLaren Hospital

Nurses at McLaren Macomb hospital say they’re at a crisis point, with dangerous levels of understaffing and poor working conditions that are impacting patients.

Not only are there far too many patients per nurse, says local union vice president Dina Carlisle, but so many support staff have left due to low pay that the food, cleaning, and support staff are down to just skeleton crews.

“I had a midnight hour RN tell me there’s one environmental services person for the whole house,” Carlisle said. “How is that possible?”

With Michigan in the midst of rising cases again in the COVID-19 pandemic, St. Clair County is being hit especially hard. St. Clair County's average test positivity rate over the last two weeks, at 20.3%, is nearly double the statewide average. The county's hospitalization rate is currently the highest in the state, and is more than double the hospitalization rate in the next hardest hit county, Crawford. 

Attorneys are asking a judge to set aside nearly a third of the proposed $641 million civil settlement tied to the Flint water crisis for lawyer fees.

They made the request in a court filing this week.  

The State of Michigan and the city of Flint, along with a Flint engineering firm and a Flint hospital, agreed to put up the money as part of an agreement to settle legal damage claims tied to the city’s water crisis.

McLaren Health Care Corporation has agreed to pay a record $7,750,000 civil penalty to the U.S. government to resolve alleged violations of the federal Controlled Substances Act.

The civil settlement was announced earlier this week by the U.S. Attorneys for the Western and Eastern Districts of Michigan.

A proposed settlement for many Flint water crisis civil lawsuits took another step forward Wednesday.

Gov. Gretchen Whitmer has signed a pair of bills creating the Flint Settlement Trust Fund.  The legislation addresses how the state would handle funding of the $641 million settlement of Flint Water civil cases.

“What happened in Flint should never have happened,” says Whitmer, “While this settlement will never be enough to compensate for what happened, it is a major step toward helping the people of Flint heal.” 

Ten unions representing nurses who work at McLaren Health Care hospitals in Michigan alleged Thursday that the hospital system has violated labor laws by withholding information about its finances and personal protective equipment.

Several locals filed complaints with the National Labor Relations Board alleging the hospital system violated collective bargaining agreements by withholding information from workers on the front lines of the coronavirus pandemic.

Over 1,000 workers at McLaren health have been placed on temporary furlough due to the COVID-19 outbreak.

The Michigan Nurses Association is calling on the hospital system to cut executive salaries before laying off nurses.

A dispute between the state health department and a Flint hospital is escalating.

The Michigan Department of Health and Human Services is ordering McLaren Hospital in Flint to immediately correct conditions in its facility to reduce the risk of future exposure to Legionella at the hospital.

The Centers for Disease Control is out with a new national study on Legionnaires' disease and health care facilities.

It points to plumbing in hospital, nursing homes and other health care facilities as potential sources for the disease.

A former state health department official has been sentenced for her role in the Flint water crisis.

Monday, retired state epidemiologist Corrine Miller was sentenced to 12 months probation and 300 hours of community service.  She will also have to pay a fine of more than a thousand dollars. 

Flint’s McLaren Hospital is responding forcefully to state health officials' demands for more information on Legionnaires' disease cases and prevention. 

In a letter to Michigan Department of Health and Human Services, McLaren hospital CEO Chad Grant accuses the department of misplacing blame for the Legionnaires' outbreak in Genesee County.

In 2014 and 2015, Genesee County saw the largest outbreak of Legionnaires' disease in at least a decade. The outbreak coincided with the city of Flint's switch from Detroit city water to water from the Flint River (and the subsequent lead exposure crisis).

Nick Lyon, head of the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services, has written a letter to McLaren Hospital in Flint, demanding it provide more information on efforts to respond to hospital-acquired Legionnaires' disease, a severe form of pneumonia.

A major outbreak of Legionnaires' was linked to McLaren Hospital in 2014 and 2015, and two more hospital-acquired cases occurred at the hospital in late 2016.