Welcome to Midday. Today, guest host Jayne Miller talks about challenges in Maryland health care services.
We begin with a look at the problems of first-responder burnout as a result of the pandemic and long waits in the emergency room.
The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services finds that Maryland’s wait times in hospital emergency rooms are among the worst in the nation, at nearly four hours per visit.
In the most recent legislative session in Annapolis, lawmakers in both the House and Senate voted to create a taskforce to investigate Maryland’s emergency room wait times. Jayne's first guest isSenator Karen Lewis Young, a Democrat who represents District 3 (Frederick County). She was the sponsor of this legislation in the Senate.
Senator Young joins us via Zoom.
Later in the program, we turn to challenges facing nursing home facilities, long-term care and elder care.
A recent report finds that staffing levels in nursing homes are at their lowest level since 1994.
Long-term care advocates have been sounding the alarm for years about the need for Maryland to invest in the future infrastructure and workforce of nursing homes.
Joe DeMattos is one of those advocates. He is president of the Health Facilities Association of Maryland. The organization represents and supports long-term care facilities across the state.
Joe DeMattos join us in Studio A.
