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This year’s flu season is ‘especially severe,’ but Michigan lags in vaccinations
Michigan’s chief medical executive has good news: Respiratory syncytial virus, or RSV, cases are down after soaring in the state last month, leaving pediatric hospitals overwhelmed by an illness that sickened children across the country. Then, however, comes the bad news. “As the RSV cases decline and we’ve heard from hospitals that they’re getting a […]
‘We don’t feel like we are being treated like heroes’
Lori Batzloff, a registered nurse at Kalamazoo’s Ascension Borgess Hospital, vividly remembers the worst days of the pandemic: the deaths and the trauma and how she would lift iPads to her dying patients’ faces so their family members could say goodbye. She remembers the days to come, the protests from those who didn’t believe COVID-19 […]
Conspiracy theorists flood the election process, set sights on monitoring ballot drop boxes
In the 2020 presidential election, there were upwards of 150 poll workers in Detroit. Then came the onslaught of right-wing conspiracy theories and lies that the 2020 election was stolen from former President Donald Trump – and the baseless claim that heavily Democratic Detroit had played a starring role. In the wake of these lies, […]
Before Roe v. Wade, U of M activists worked with clergy to connect students with abortion care
“So! You’ve just found out your [sic] pregnant,” Andrea Way, an abortion counselor, wrote in the September 1972 edition of Her-Self, a feminist newspaper published in Ann Arbor from 1972 through 1977. “Suppose that you’re one of the happy minority – one of those who can easily support and love a much-wanted child,” Way continued […]
Why experts say the fall of abortion rights is a key sign of a troubled democracy
The floodgates opened in 2011. That year, increasingly right-wing Republicans – who had weaponized gerrymandering and racism (think: birtherism) during President Barack Obama’s tenure to sweep the 2010 midterm elections and flip state legislatures across the nation – passed 92 anti-abortion bills throughout the country, a record number for a single year since the United […]
Nurses reach tentative contract agreement with University of Michigan
The union representing about 6,200 Michigan Medicine nurses who have been working without a contract since July announced Thursday the group has reached a tentative agreement with the University of Michigan, which would avert a potential strike, end mandatory overtime and boost wages to recruit and retain workers. Members of the Michigan Nurses Association-University of […]
Criminalizing abortion would be a disaster for Michigan colleges and universities, presidents say
In the wake of the U.S. Supreme Court overturning Roe v. Wade, colleges and universities across Michigan are repeatedly fielding a question from prospective students and faculty: What is the status of abortion in Michigan? So far, administrators are able to tell them that abortion is legal in Michigan amid court challenges. However, if the […]
Kelley calls Michigan GOP leaders ‘globalists’ who don’t back ‘Republican agenda’
Updated, 8:30 a.m., 8/23/22, and 1:57 p.m., 8/23/2022 With the Michigan Republican convention just days away, former GOP gubernatorial candidates continue to lob criticism at a Michigan Republican Party facing infighting — including Ryan Kelley, who on Saturday called for an overhaul of the state’s GOP leadership and said he’s considering a bid for party […]
University of Michigan nurses set to vote on strike authorization
Updated 3:36 p.m., 8/19/22 with comments from the University of Michigan About 6,200 nurses at the University of Michigan’s hospital in Ann Arbor will vote later this month on whether or not to authorize a strike over what union leaders and workers describe as “unfair labor practices” that are leaving nurses exhausted, burnt out and […]
Michigan Nurses Association sues University of Michigan over ‘staffing crisis’
Every day, nurses at the University of Michigan’s hospital in Ann Arbor go to their union president to make reports. They are overworked. Exhausted. Burnt out. After two and a half years of working during the COVID-19 pandemic, Michigan Medicine nurses are feeling crushed under the weight of what union officials said is an increasingly […]
‘They’re trying to distract and divide us’
A new national nonprofit is organizing parents, teachers and students in Michigan to fight right-wing activism in education, including Republican-led legislation that critics say will silence educators attempting to teach about race and racism. The organization, the Campaign for Our Shared Future, launched in 2021 and has since gone on to identify 15 states — […]
As Michiganders struggle to afford health care, leaders push lawmakers to act
Michiganders are having trouble accessing and paying for both physical and mental health care and want their state and federal lawmakers to prioritize driving down health care costs, including by capping insurance deductibles and curbing what insurers can charge patients, according to a new survey. Lansing-based EPIC-MRA, a survey research firm, in June asked 609 […]