As much as we would like to join the celebration of the House's passage of the health bill last night, in good conscience we cannot. We take no comfort in seeing aspirin dispensed for the treatment of cancer. Instead of eliminating the root of the problem - the profit-driven, private health insurance industry - this costly new legislation will enrich and further entrench these firms. The bill would require millions of Americans to buy private insurers' defective products, and turn over to them vast amounts of public money.

Two weeks off Haiti aboard a Navy hospital ship left Darrell Daugherty, a nurse from Chico, with vivid memories and plenty of material for his diary. It was the chance of a lifetime to work aboard the USNS Comfort, Daugherty said in an interview this week. "I met great people. I thought they were doing a very good job."

The Eden Township Healthcare District has filed a countersuit in Superior Court in a bid to invalidate Sutter Health's attempt to close San Leandro Hospital's emergency room. The countersuit, submitted Wednesday morning, states that a 2008 memorandum of understanding that allows Sutter to sell San Leandro Hospital is invalid because three directors on the board at the time had conflicts of interest because of incomes derived from Eden Medical Center. The directors were identified as Dr. Rajendra Ratnesar, Dr. Francisco Rico and George Bicshalaney.

Federal regulators visiting UC Irvine Medical Center found two cases of immediate jeopardy - the most serious finding of potential danger to patients - during an inspection last week, according to a memo sent to hospital employees.

Lauren Aichele, operating room nurse at UCSF at Mount Zion, was one of three nurses chosen out of thousands of applicants to National Nurses United to help earthquake victims in Haiti. She stayed on the Navy’s medical ship, the USNS Comfort, for two weeks in February.

The federal agency that oversees labor law has ordered St. Johns Health Center, Santa Monica, to stand trial on charges that it has violated the rights of its registered nurses. The National Labor Relations Board is prosecuting the hospital for unlawful harassment of nurse leaders, engaging in illicit spying on RNs, and interrogating nurses about union activity, among other violations.

As a veteran emergency and intensive care nurse, Marti Smith of Oakdale has cared for plenty of car crash victims and other people with severely broken bones. During her 10 days of serving on a hospital ship caring for victims of the Haiti earthquake, she wasn't struck by the severity of the injuries, but by the sheer number of Haitian people with severe trauma.