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Nurses, lab workers and radiology staffers at Calais Regional Hospital plan to go on strike for two days next week, ratcheting up an ongoing labor dispute that included a recent call for the hospital’s CEO to be fired and raising new concerns about what they said has been a poor response to a coronavirus outbreak that recently infected six of their colleagues, the Bangor Daily News reported. The strike will take place next week on Wednesday and Thursday, according to a written notice that Maine State Nurses’ Association, the union representing the workers, provided to the hospital on Friday. The staff members would return to their jobs on Friday morning, Nov. 20, for shifts starting at 7 a.m. The union has about 50 members at the Calais hospital, including registered nurses, medical laboratory scientists, laboratory technologists and radiology technologists. The hospital said that it has a plan to keep operating if the union proceeds with the strike, relying on non-union staff who could be temporarily reassigned to different roles and one temporary worker. But the facility may have to delay some non-essential services, including testing for COVID-19 and elective procedures, according to the statement. In addition to providing testing and treatment in response to the COVID-19 cases now spreading through the community, the hospital also contended with serious cash shortfalls during the early days of the pandemic, when it had to postpone a number of nonessential services. At one point, it said it would lay off 10 percent of its staff and, without additional financial assistance, might have to close in the early summer.

A senior-care facility outside Detroit filed for bankruptcy protection, blaming its default on $52 million in municipal-bond debt on coronavirus pandemic restrictions that curbed occupancy, WSJ Pro Bankruptcy reported. Henry Ford Village, which has more than 1,000 units and offers three levels of care, sought chapter 11 protection Wednesday hoping to find a financial sponsor or a strategic partner to put the facility on sound footing, according to court papers filed in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Detroit. Occupancy has fallen as the coronavirus spread, stressing Henry Ford Village to the breaking point. Some seniors who were living there have left to move in with family, fearful of the contagion that devastated some nursing homes in the early days of the pandemic, Chad Shandler, the facility’s chief restructuring officer, said in a declaration filed in court. The Dearborn, Mich., facility has been on strict lockdown since the start of the pandemic, preventing vacant units from being shown to prospective residents. In addition to debts to bondholders, Henry Ford Village has more than $110 million in liabilities to current and former residents, court papers said. As occupancy declines, Henry Ford Village has to set aside more money for refunding the entrance fees that seniors pay when they move in. Such refunds are the facility’s largest financial obligation, according to court papers. Nursing homes and other senior-care facilities nationwide have been subject to some of the most stringent social-distancing mandates to account for the particular danger posed to seniors living in close quarters. Only recently have some states eased rules against visitors. Read more.

In related news, just weeks after the first known coronavirus outbreak on U.S. soil at the outset of a looming pandemic, the woman responsible for helping to protect 1.3 million residents in America’s nursing homes laid out an urgent strategy to slow the spread of infection, the Washington Post reported. In the suburbs of Seattle, federal inspectors had found the Life Care Center of Kirkland failed to properly care for ailing patients or alert authorities to a growing number of respiratory infections. At least 146 other nursing homes across the country had confirmed coronavirus cases in late March when Seema Verma, the administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, vowed to help “keep what happened in Kirkland from happening again.” The federal agency and its state partners, Verma said, would conduct a series of newly strengthened inspections to ensure 15,400 Medicare-certified nursing homes were heeding long-standing regulations meant to prevent the spread of communicable diseases. It was another key component of a national effort, launched in early March, to shore up safety protocols for the country’s most fragile residents during an unprecedented health emergency. But the government inspectors deployed by CMS during the first six months of the crisis cleared nearly 8 in 10 nursing homes of any infection-control violations even as the deadliest pandemic to strike the United States in a century sickened and killed thousands, a Washington Post investigation found. Those cleared included homes with mounting coronavirus outbreaks before or during the inspections, as well as those that saw cases and deaths spiral upward after inspectors reported no violations had been found, in some cases multiple times. All told, homes that received a clean bill of health earlier this year had about 290,000 coronavirus cases and 43,000 deaths among residents and staff, state and federal data shows. Read more.

The federal government’s proposed settlement with the Sackler family members who own OxyContin maker Purdue Pharma LP ran into opposition from company creditors worried that less money will be left over for them, WSJ Pro Bankruptcy reported. An official committee that represents Purdue’s creditors raised objections to the proposed settlement in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in White Plains, N.Y., where Purdue sought chapter 11 protection last year under an onslaught of lawsuits accusing the company of helping fuel opioid addiction. Carrying out the settlement requires approval from the bankruptcy court. Action in the bankruptcy case involves both mediation and an investigation by the official creditors committee into the company’s owners and their vast wealth. Members of the Sackler family who served on Purdue’s board and were sued along with the company are, like Purdue itself, shielded against lawsuits while they try to come to terms with states, municipalities, Native American authorities and other creditors. Without filing for bankruptcy, the billionaire Sacklers are sharing the company’s legal shield temporarily, and hope to negotiate a permanent reprieve from lawsuits as part of Purdue’s bankruptcy plan.

With the approval of the U.S. Bankruptcy Court Western District of New York, Eastern Niagara Hospital will sell its closed Newfane campus for $1 million, Buffalo Business First reported. Anne McCaffrey, hospital president, said that the approval allows the hospital to move forward with a purchase agreement with Costello Holdings, which is considering several options for the campus, including senior housing or assisted living. Costello Holdings, the Florida-based company that also owns the historic Bewley Building in Lockport and dozens of residential and multi-tenant apartment units in Niagara County, said that it would likely seek a partner to operate the campus. The campus was closed last year just before Eastern Niagara filed for chapter 11 protection. The campus includes the main hospital, a 63,106-square-foot facility with 74 rooms, and a secondary building. The site was renovated in 2018 as a home for the hospital's expanded inpatient addictions program. Eastern Niagara Hospital announced recently that it will also close its Lockport hospital as part of a collaboration with Catholic Health, which plans to open a $37 million hospital in the town. With revenue of $66 million in 2018, Eastern Niagara has finished the last four years in the red. It was one of the region's last remaining independent hospitals.

A federal bankruptcy judge cleared the way on Wednesday for Astria Health to sell the vacant Astria Regional Medical Center and the neighboring Medical Office Building to a local investment group, the Yakima (Wash.) Herald reported. Judge Whitman Holt authorized the sale of the hospital and the neighboring Medical Office Building for $20 million. The offer received no objections, including from Astria Health’s creditors. Judge Whitman Holt said Astria Health showed reasonable business reasonable judgment in securing the offer from the investment group, Yakima MOBIC LLC. Holt acknowledged it was unlikely that Astria Health could get a better offer through other means, such as an auction. The local investment group plans to complete the purchase of the buildings on West Chestnut Avenue between South Ninth and Eleventh avenues in Yakima by Dec. 1.

Walmart Inc. sued the federal government in an attempt to strike a pre-emptive blow against what it said is an impending opioid-related civil lawsuit from the Justice Department, the Wall Street Journal reported. The retail giant said in a lawsuit filed yesterday that the Justice Department and Drug Enforcement Administration are seeking to scapegoat the company for the federal government’s own regulatory and enforcement shortcomings in combating the opioid crisis. Walmart said the government is seeking steep financial penalties against the retailer for allegedly contributing to the opioid crisis by filling questionable prescriptions. The suit names the department and Attorney General William Barr as defendants, as well as the DEA and its acting administrator, Timothy Shea. It is seeking a declaration from a federal judge that the government has no lawful basis for seeking civil damages from the company based on claims pharmacists filled valid prescriptions that they should have known raised red flags. Walmart, which operates more than 5,000 in-store pharmacies in the U.S., said the government’s “threatened action would be unprecedented.” It said the government hasn’t alleged that the company was filling altered prescriptions, or that its pharmacists had inappropriate relationships with patients or doctors.

LRGHealthcare yesterday filed for chapter 11 protection, the latest hospital chain to succumb to disruptions from the novel coronavirus, Bloomberg News reported. The company has a stalking-horse offer from Concord Hospital Inc. for Lakes Region General Hospital, Franklin Regional Hospital and the hospitals’ ambulatory sites, according to a statement. The group plans to conduct a sale process and auction for the assets. The pandemic has pushed a cohort of struggling U.S. hospitals into deeper financial distress as they cope with the cost of care and precautions, a slowdown in profitable elective procedures, and a loss of lucrative privately insured patients. The American Hospital Association released a report in July from Kaufman, Hall & Associates that estimated as many of half of U.S. hospitals could be losing money by year-end. Population shifts from rural areas have also pressured many institutions. Problems at LRG, which listed liabilities of more than $100 million, began many years before the virus gut-punched the U.S. economy. Previous managers invested in inpatient care at a time when “patient demographics and medical trends indicated more reliance on outpatient services and decreased hospital use,” according to a court declaration. Costs rose, reimbursements fell, and it lost patients to other communities. The Laconia, New Hampshire-based company made extensive cost cuts, including eliminating more than a fifth of its workforce, but found that the reductions “did not result in profitability or sustainability.”

A grim reality is setting in across the U.S. hospital sector: a surge in coronavirus infections is encroaching while most facilities are still recovering from the onset of the pandemic, Bloomberg News reported. The growing number of cases is threatening the very survival of hospitals just when the country needs them most. Hundreds were already in shaky circumstances before the virus remade the world, and the impact of caring for COVID-19 patients has put hundreds more in jeopardy. The new coronavirus sidelined profitable elective procedures and pushed up costs to keep patients and staff safe. Meanwhile, hospitals are losing the privately insured patients they depend on as millions of Americans lose their jobs and employer-sponsored coverage. “It sort of all comes together as essentially a triple whammy,” Aaron Wesolowski, vice president for policy research, analytics and strategy at the trade group American Hospital Association, said in an interview. More than 215,000 Americans have now died from the novel coronavirus and 7.8 million have had confirmed infections, numbers that set the U.S. apart on the world stage. Though new virus cases fell last month after a summer spike, COVID-19 is again on the rise, especially in the Midwest. Thirty-eight states are now considered hot spots, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation, which considers rising cases, test-positivity rates and new daily cases per million population in its analysis. The AHA has estimated the pandemic will cost U.S. hospitals more than $323 billion through the end of this year. U.S. hospital revenue totaled about $1.1 trillion in 2018, according to the most recent AHA data available. The industry group is asking Congress for an additional $100 billion and full forgiveness of loans made under Medicare’s accelerated payment program, among other requests for relief.

Mallinckrodt Plc became the third major opioid maker to go bankrupt after being swamped by claims it profited by fueling the U.S. opioid epidemic, Bloomberg News reported. The drug company said yesterday that it filed for chapter 11 protection in Delaware after getting creditors and claimants to agree on a restructuring plan that hands ownership to bondholders, wipes out shareholders and sets aside $1.6 billion to resolve all opioid litigation. The filing also will help resolve a U.S. government probe into whether the company defrauded Medicaid by overcharging for Acthar Gel, its top-selling multiple sclerosis drug. The move comes as Mallinckrodt was readying for two trials over accusations it illegally marketed opioids and failed to properly oversee large shipments of the highly addictive pills, which have been tied to an epidemic of abuse that killed thousands of Americans. A judge is likely to halt all litigation while the bankruptcy plan makes its way through the court process. The agreement includes certain debt holders, state attorneys general and lawyers for municipalities that sued to recoup billions in tax dollars spent on battling opioid addictions. Mallinckrodt will set up a trust to oversee payments from the $1.6 billion fund to claimants, and give them warrants to buy a stake in the reorganized company that could total nearly 20 percent, according to a statement.