BRIDGETON • Officials at the new 60-bed SSM Rehabilitation Hospital hope that it will become a regional center for the treatment of brain and spinal cord injuries.
Doug Brewer, president and chief executive of SSM-Select Rehabilitation, says the hospital brings together several services that previously were provided at other SSM sites, and the hospital also has all new equipment to help improve the rehab services offered by SSM.
Brewer said the hospital would focus particularly on helping those with brain or spinal cord injuries, in addition to providing a variety of other rehab services.
The $23 million Rehabilitation Hospital on the campus of DePaul Health Center, 12380 DePaul Drive in Bridgeton, began accepting its first patients this week. The three-story, 66,914-square-foot hospital was built over the past 18 months and has opened on schedule.
“I think we can all agree that this building has exceeded our expectations,” Brewer said at a dedication ceremony last week.
“Yes,” he added, “it’s a beautiful building, but exceptional, compassionate care for patients cannot be faked, and that’s what we’ll strive to provide here.”
The new hospital features these amenities:
• Therapy gyms on the third and fourth floors with ceiling-to-floor windows that provide a panoramic view of nearby interstates 70 and 270 and St. Charles Rock Road. Brewer said viewing the hustle and bustle outside can help stimulate those with certain types of brain injuries and hasten their recovery.
• Private, windowless therapy and consultation rooms for those whose injuries respond best to very little outside stimulation.
• Brightly lit patient rooms and hallways designed to look more like a hotel than a hospital. Large photos of St. Louis-area attractions hang in each patient’s room. Brewer said most patients will be at the hospital for at least two weeks or much longer, so designers tried to make the rooms as inviting as possible without forgetting the facility’s medical mission.
• A large dining area with both indoor and outdoor seating.
• An outdoor ambulation course for patient therapies.
• A courtyard for use by patients and their families.
• Nurses’ stations facing large windows on the nearby therapy gyms and therapy rooms, giving workers a good view and allowing them to respond quickly to any emergencies credit reports free.
The new hospital also houses the SSM Day Institute, a specialized outpatient program for people who are recovering from a traumatic injury or illness but who no longer require 24-hour nursing or acute rehabilitation care.
The hospital opened with about 150 employees and will employ 250 when it reaches full occupancy. SSM Rehabilitation Hospital is operated by SSM-Select Rehab LLC, a joint venture of SSM Health Care-St. Louis and Select Medical, which is based in Mechanicsburg, Pa.
David Chernow, Select Medical’s president and chief development and strategy officer, said he was excited about the new hospital and all of its new equipment and technology.
“But it will be the patients’ experience itself that they and their family members will remember the most after they go home,” he said.
“Our mission is to help them regain their independence. Truly, we will improve their quality of life.”
Chris Gonzalez, the hospital’s director of rehabilitation, said, “One area that will differentiate us is our care of people who have dual diagnoses — a spinal cord injury and a brain injury. Many times when there are traumatic injuries, especially in car accidents, both of these injuries occur.”
The brain injury rehab program is being relocated from St. Mary’s Health Center in Richmond Heights to the new hospital. The SSM Rehabilitation network will continue to operate general inpatient rehab programs at both St. Mary’s and St. Joseph Health Center in St. Charles.
Dan Blaker, vice president of design and construction for Select Medical, said the new hospital looks in many ways like other medical facilities Select Medical has helped build in recent years.
“We basically incorporated rehab design features that we have incorporated over a number of years at other facilities,” he said.
He said the SSM Rehabilitation Hospital site was somewhat unusual in that it is long and narrow and on a hilltop. So the hospital was built with long hallways to fit the terrain.
Alberici Constructors Inc. was the general contractor on the project, and Stock and Associates were consulting engineers.
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Brooke Gray could be either of two things: an insufficiently educated opportunist, trying to pass herself off as an equine dentist, or a young woman dedicated to horses, performing an age-old practice for an honest wage.
A circuit court judge recently said the former. Her attorney, a St. Louis-based litigator with a history of challenging the government’s licensing power, says the latter — and believes the judge’s ruling could limit everyone from cattle hands to dog groomers.
A Clinton County Circuit Court judge ruled in December that Gray had to stop a practice called “teeth floating” after the Missouri Veterinary Medical Board, which oversees veterinary licenses in the state, sued Gray because she does not have a veterinary license.
Her attorney plans to appeal the ruling, saying that Gray is merely practicing something that unlicensed lay people have done for hundreds of years.
“Up until 15 years ago no one in Missouri considered these animal husbandry practices veterinary medicine,” said Gray’s attorney, David Roland, who helms the libertarian Missouri Freedom Center. “That’s how animal agriculture has always been done.”
Roland calls Gray’s case “the tip of the iceberg” and says it could have ramifications for anyone who wants to perform “basic animal husbandry” without a license.
But state law, veterinarian groups and the board say veterinary practices are regulated for a reason: to protect animals and their owners from untrained, unskilled workers. They say the practice of teeth floating, which often requires sedation, should be done either by, or under the supervision, of a licensed veterinarian.
“The public seems to think the licensing board is there to protect veterinarians,” said Bruce Whittle, chair of the equine committee for the Missouri Veterinary Medical Association, the group that represents the state’s vets. “It’s to protect the public against veterinarians that are doing harm.”
Gray, who lives north of Kansas City, grew up on an Iowa farm and always wanted to work with horses. So, about eight years ago, she got two months of training at an equine dentistry school in Idaho, then moved to Missouri and opened B & B Equine Dentistry.
She built a steady clientele floating horses teeth, which involves filing down the sharp points that emerge on the enamel. Sharp edges can make it difficult for the horse to eat. Her customers, she says, liked her work.
“I’ve never had a complaint from a client,” Gray said.
She did, however, get a complaint filed against her from a local Clay County vet, David Leighr, whose clients told him that Gray was improperly sedating horses and, in some cases, extracting teeth. Under state law, sedation by anyone other than an owner or licensed vet is illegal, while extraction is a surgical practice, which makes it a veterinary practice, and therefore also illegal for someone to perform without a license.
“One of my clients told me that Brooke had sedated an animal and hit a vein,” Leighr said. “Brooke also had them sign a piece of paper that said she was not responsible for anything that happens. A vet doesn’t do that. That raised a red flag with me.”
When asked if she had extracted teeth, Gray said: “I’ve taken some things out of horses mouths that didn’t belong there.” When asked if she had sedated horses, she said: “I’ve been informed not to say anything about the sedation issue.”
Leighr called the board, and eventually, it began to pursue the matter.
After sending two cease-and-desist letters, the board sued Gray to make her stop. She didn’t. So in September, the matter went to trial.
Roland says he believes the board pursued the case on behalf of veterinarians who felt they were in danger of losing income to untrained teeth floaters, not because they were concerned about animal welfare.
“One of the quirks of the law is that it’s not illegal to do the work on the animals,” he explained. “But if they get paid for it, it’s a criminal offense. So this is not a health issue.”
Several states, he said, have recently changed laws to allow teeth floating by nonvets, and he’ll push for Missouri to do the same.
He also points to a number of cease-and-desist letters sent by the board aimed at stopping everything from branding to pet grooming practices. These, he says, are evidence the state is trying to regulate practices that should not require licensing.
“This is an issue that’s been gaining momentum for a couple of years,” he said.
Gray believes the board is merely requiring a costly education — vet school runs an average of $150,000 — for something she specifically trained to do.
But veterinarians, including Leighr — a fourth-generation vet who said news coverage of the issue in his practice area had cost him business — maintain this issue centers on animal welfare and training.
“Her attorney is trying to convince the public that lay professionals have been doing this for years and that it’s safe,” he said. “I don’t think it’s safe. … And the fact that’s she’s using sedation and there’s no oversight makes it even less safe.”
“I went to school for eight years,” Leighr added. “I’ll put my records out there all the way back to high school, and I challenge her to do the same.”
Gray said she would continue floating teeth, only under the supervision of vets, until the appeal is resolved. That, Leighr insisted, is all he’s wanted all along.
“I said to her: ‘You can do this all day long by having a vet present,’” he said. “Missouri is full of vets retiring every day. They’d be tickled to death to get in the truck with you and go on a farm call.”
U.S. home prices are falling again in most major cities after posting small gains over the summer and spring, the latest evidence that the troubled housing market won’t recover any time soon.
The Standard & Poor’s/Case-Shiller index released Tuesday showed prices dropped in September from August in 17 of the 20 cities tracked. That was the first decline after five straight months in which at least half the cities in the survey showed monthly gains.
A separate index for the July-September quarter shows prices were mostly unchanged from the previous quarter.
David M. Blitzer, chairman of S&P’s index committee, said that while the steep price declines seen between 2007 and 2009 appear to be over, home prices are down from the same time last year and do not show signs of easing.
“Any chance for a sustained recovery will probably need a stronger economy,” Blitzer said.
Atlanta, San Francisco and Tampa, Fla. posted the biggest monthly price declines. Prices in Atlanta, Las Vegas and Phoenix fell to their lowest points since the housing crisis began four years ago. Blitzer called the new lows reached in those three cities a “bit disturbing.”
Prices rose in New York, Portland, Ore. and Washington.
Americans are reluctant to purchase a home more than two years after the recession officially ended. High unemployment and weak job growth have deterred many would-be buyers. Even the lowest mortgage rates in history haven’t been enough to lift sales.
Some people can’t qualify for loans or meet higher down payment requirements. Many with good credit and stable jobs are holding off because they fear that prices will keep falling payday loan lenders.
Sales of previously occupied homes are on pace to match last year’s dismal figures _ the worst in 14 years. And sales of new homes are shaping up to be the worst since the government began keeping records a half century ago.
“Despite record high affordability of real estate, the psychology of home buyers is still being weighed down by economic uncertainty, keeping them on the fence when it comes to buying homes,” said Stan Humphries, chief economist at Zillow.com, which measures home values.
The Case Shiller index covers half of all U.S. homes. It measures prices compared with those in January 2000 and creates a three-month moving average. The September data is the latest available.
Prices are certain to fall further once banks resume millions of foreclosures. They have been delayed because of a yearlong government investigation into mortgage lending practices.
Home prices had stabilized in coastal cities over the past six months, helped by a rush of spring buyers and investors. But this year, prices in many cities, including Cleveland, Detroit, Las Vegas, Phoenix and Tampa, have reached their lowest points since the housing bust more than four years ago.
Foreclosures and short sales _ when a lender accepts less for a home than what is owed on a mortgage _ are selling at an average discount of 20 percent.
Barclays PLC reported a 7 percent rise in net profit in the first nine months on Monday, largely on the back of a one-time boost from investment banking.
The bank reported a net profit of 2.65 billion pounds ($4.25 billion) compared to 2.48 billion pounds a year earlier.
Revenue was up 10 percent to 25.2 billion pounds in part due to a 3 billion pounds credit gain in the third quarter.
The bank said the gain came from widening spreads on Barclays Capital’s structured products, a range of investment products which typically include complex derivatives.
For the third quarter, pretax profit was up from 327 million pounds a year ago to 2.4 billion pounds, again reflecting the one-off gain. Adjusted pretax profit for the quarter was up 5 percent to 1.34 billion pounds, broadly in line with the market consensus.
The adjusted figure excludes the own credit, a 1.8 billion pounds writedown on its stake in the investment firm BlackRock Inc. and other one-time items.
Barclays Capital third-quarter income excluding the gain was down 15 percent to 2.25 billion pounds.
Barclays shares were up 2.9 percent to 207 pence in early trading on the London Stock Exchange.
“Overall, these results are slightly better than we had expected,” said Gary Greenwood, analyst at Shore Capital, who nonetheless rates the shares as “sell.”
The bank reported that it had reduced its exposure to sovereign debt in Spain, Italy, Portugal, Ireland and Greece by 31 percent in the quarter to 8 billion pounds, with about half of the remaining exposure in Italy.
Premier Wen Jiabao has promised China’s struggling exporters a stable exchange rate in a move that might fuel tensions with Washington over Beijing’s currency controls as the global economy weakens.
Wen’s pledge, reported by the official Xinhua News Agency and state radio, comes after the U.S. Senate approved a measure to allow higher tariffs on Chinese goods that critics say are unfairly cheap due to an artificially undervalued currency.
Beijing’s exchange rate controls are especially sensitive at a time when other nations are trying to revive growth by boosting exports and complain that a weak Chinese yuan is widening the country’s swollen trade surplus.
Wen’s pledge Friday at a trade fair in southern China came after export growth suffered an unexpectedly steep decline in September, hurt by a fall in sales to Europe amid the continent’s debt crisis.
Wen promised a “basically stable exchange rate,” Xinhua said. He pledged to maintain export-related tax rebates and other support.
U.S. manufacturers complain the yuan is undervalued by up to 40 percent, giving China’s exporters an unfair price advantage and wiping out American jobs. Beijing has allowed the yuan to gain by about 7 percent against the dollar since June 2010 in tightly controlled trading, but that is not as fast as critics want.
The measure approved Tuesday by the Senate would allow Washington to raise tariffs on goods from countries that the U.S. Treasury concludes are manipulating exchange rates for a trade advantage. The bill is not expected to become law because it lacks the support of the leadership of the lower House of Representatives, which has yet to vote on it.
China’s government reacted angrily to the measure, dismissing it as protectionism at a dangerous time for the shaky world economy and warning that trade relations would be damaged if it were allowed to become law.
China’s economy, the world’s second-largest, is relatively robust, with growth forecast by the World Bank of 9.3 percent this year. But weakening exports by Chinese manufacturers that employ millions of people could lead to layoffs and social tensions.
September’s export growth fell to 17.1 percent over a year earlier, down from August’s 24.5 percent, customs data showed Thursday.
News Corp., the media conglomerate under fire for phone hacking in Britain, said Wednesday that its net income for the last quarter fell 22 percent mainly because of the sale of social networking site Myspace. It also acknowledged for the first time that it is facing investigations into whether alleged phone hacking and police bribery occurred at its subsidiaries outside of the U.K.
“The company is fully cooperating with these investigations,” the company said in a statement.
Net income at the TV and newspaper giant controlled by Rupert Murdoch fell to $683 million, or 26 cents per share in the three months through June. A year ago, the company earned $875 million, or 33 cents per share.
Excluding the $254 million loss on the Myspace sale, adjusted earnings came to 36 cents per share, beating the 30 cents expected by analysts polled by FactSet.
Revenue grew 11 percent to $8.96 billion from $8.11 billion. That also beat expectations for revenue of $8.51 billion.
Addressing the hacking scandal, Murdoch said in a statement that the company is “acting decisively in the matter and will do whatever is necessary to prevent something like this from ever occurring again.”
Murdoch vowed to investors on a conference call that he will remain as chief executive of the company and said he had the backing of the company’s board. But he said that he and Chief Operating Officer Chase Carey act “as a team” and are jointly responsible for the company’s performance.
News Corp.’s nonvoting Class A shares rose 4 cents to $13.75 in after-hours trading, after dropping 84 cents, or 5.8 percent to close at $13.71 in the regular session. Since the phone hacking scandal erupted in early July, shares have fallen 24 percent and the company has lost more than $11 billion in market value.
Yahoo, Japan’s Softbank and the Chinese Internet company Alibaba Group have agreed on a compensation plan involving the Web payment service Alipay.
Yahoo holds a 43 percent stake in Alibaba. In May, Yahoo shocked investors with news that Alibaba had spun off Alipay in March without giving the Internet company anything in return.
Under the new agreement, Yahoo Inc., Softbank Corp. and Alibaba said that Alibaba will continue to participate in Alipay’s future financial performance. Alibaba will get at least $2 billion and up to $6 billion upon a possible IPO or sale of Alipay.
Alipay says it is China’s biggest third-party online payment platform.
Yahoo shares are up almost 7 percent in premarket trading.
QUESTION
Stocks are closing lower after Moody’s knocked Ireland’s bond rating to junk, saying the country would likely need another rescue. Moody’s already has junk ratings on Greece and Portugal.
Ireland is again the focus of investor fears that a heavily-indebted European country will default. That could cause disruptions on financial markets and a slowdown in lending.
The Dow Jones industrial average lost 59 points, or 0.5 percent, to close at 12,446 Tuesday free instant credit score. The Standard & Poor’s 500 index is down 6 points, or 0.4 percent, to 1,314. The Nasdaq composite is down 21, or 0.7 percent, at 2,782.
About three stocks fell for every one that rose on the New York Stock Exchange. Volume was lighter than average at 3.7 billion shares.
LONDON - News International says it is shutting down the News of the World tabloid that is at the center of Britain’s phone hacking scandal.
James Murdoch, who heads the newspaper’s European operations, says the 168-year-old newspaper will publish its last edition Sunday. The scandal has cost the paper prestige and prompted dozens of companies to pull their ads.
The Rupert Murdoch-owned tabloid is accused of hacking into the cell phone messages of victims ranging from missing schoolgirls to grieving families, celebrities, royals and politicians in a quest for attention-grabbing headlines.
Murdoch owns several media operations around the world, including Fox News and the Wall Street Journal in the United States.
Police say they are examining 4,000 names of people who may have been targeted by the paper quick payday loan.
The Sunday-only newspaper has acknowledged that it hacked into the phones of politicians, celebrities and royal aides, but in recent days the allegations have expanded to take in the phones of missing children, the relatives of terrorist victims and families of soldiers killed in Afghanistan.
James Murdoch said if the allegations were true, “it was inhuman and has no place in our company.”
“Wrongdoers turned a good newsroom bad,” he said, “and this was not fully understood or adequately pursued.”
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