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Dear Editor:

This saddens me to write this to you. The McGill Drug Store museum has been vandalized a second time and was discovered by Dan Braddock Saturday morning. Rocks the size of bowling balls have been thrown through the windows. There was also damage to some items in the interior.

Windows are something that are replaceable however damage to some items is irreplaceable. The cost of repairs and insurance increases are something that we are having to pull out of our budget when we have other repairs and projects that are more important.

All of us board members are volunteers and there is only one paid staff. We take time away from our families to help preserve items and information from our past. We ask that everyone be vigilant of your surroundings.

If you have any information on this criminal activity please contact the White Pine County Sheriff’s Office.

Thank you to Kirt Braun for boarding up the windows until the new windows get here.

Anyone who is interested in volunteering for the White Pine Public Museum in Ely or the McGill Drug Store museum please call the White Pine Public Museum at 775.289.4710 or stop by at 2000 Aultman Street.

An Elko cardiologist has been arrested on 39 charges of unlawful distribution of prescription opioids and Medicare and Medicaid fraud...58-year-old Dr. Devendra I. Patel...is charged with...routinely prescribing fentanyl, hydrocodone, and oxycodone for his patients without a legitimate medical purpose from May 2014 to September 2017, and fraudulently billing Medicare and Medicaid for medical tests he did not perform. The indictment alleges Patel performed EKGs on his patients, so he could then order nuclear stress tests which he did not administer. He allegedly used a poorly-calibrated machine and presented his patients with fraudulent X-rays to deceive his patients into thinking they had coronary issues that needed to be treated by him...

Nevada health officials on Tuesday said a bill aimed at curtailing opioid overprescription will keep decision-making in the hands of physicians, not lawmakers...The provisions of Assembly Bill 474, which the Legislature passed into law this year and takes effect on New Year’s Day, were explained to about 200 physicians Tuesday evening at a forum at Las Vegas City Hall...Daniel Burkhead, a physician at the Innovative Pain Care Center in Las Vegas, said the law asks doctors to exercise caution...The law mandates that doctors conduct mental health evaluations before issuing first-time opioid prescriptions, which will be limited to 14 days. The law also mandates that doctors register with the state’s Prescription Drug Monitoring Program...“(Lawmakers) did not want to take power out of the hands of physicians,” Burkhead said. “The law wants you to think, before writing that prescription, if this patient provides a high risk of that medication being diverted or abused or misused.”

Nevada has requested an extra $11.3 million in federal funding to continue the state’s Children’s Health Insurance Program while Congress decides if it will renew funding for the decades-old program...If the federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services approves the state’s request, it will keep the Nevada Check Up program running through February, according to Chrystal Main, a spokeswoman for the state Department of Health and Human Services...Without it, the state will run out of funding by the end of the year, and families will need to find health coverage elsewhere...Congress missed its Sept. 30 deadline to reauthorize the program, which covers more than 27,500 Nevada children whose low-income families make too much to qualify for Medicaid. The state’s Division of Health Care Financing and Policy was working to find alternate funding sources for the program, deputy administrator Cody Phinney said at the time...The program costs $43 million annually, covered almost entirely by federal funding.

Doctors have additional protocols to consider when writing and maintaining opioid prescriptions under a new law that took effect on New Year’s Day...The Prescription Drug Abuse Prevention Act, passed by the 2017 Legislature, outlines safeguards for doctors before they prescribe controlled substances to treat pain and increases requirements necessary to continue a prescription after one month, three months and a year...The additional paperwork is meant to curb the state’s opioid overdose problem and track down doctors who overprescribe...“It just provides a platform by which the provider can really have an in-depth discussion with the patient as to whether the use of a controlled substance is truly necessary, or whether there are alternatives, ” said Daniel Burkhead, a pain management specialist in Las Vegas...The guidelines require every doctor to perform a patient risk assessment before prescribing a controlled substance to treat pain...Nevada is among 17 states that have enacted legislation limiting the number of days of an initial opioid prescription or capping prescription strength...

When former Clark County School District school psychologist Diana Goodsell was injured by an alleged drunken driver in 2015, she required a cervical spinal fusion surgery...just before the operation...she was told it would cost her $6,800 out of pocket...that was part of the agreement with the Teachers Health Trust...Now Goodsell and other current and former district employees have filied (filed) a class action lawsuit against the Teachers Health Trust, which provides health insurance for thousands of Clark County School District employees and their dependents. The lawsuit...alleges breach of contract, consumer fraud and other actions that the plaintiffs say have forced them to pay more for health care and receive less...The lawsuit names the trust, seven of its trustees and WellHealth Quality Care...as defendants. It claims that WellHealth violated its contract by refusing to pay claims, charging double the $10 co-pay for doctor visits and leaving teachers with higher yearly out-of-pocket expenses than the specified cap of approximately $6,800...The School Board said it has received numerous complaints about the trust’s health care coverage...

Southern Nevada and the world watched as Las Vegas hospitals and doctors operated and cared for the wounded on Oct. 1 and subsequent days, and they’re getting high marks for their performance for handling the worst mass shooting in modern U.S. history...While 58 were killed — nearly all succumbed to their wounds at the scene of a country music concert on the Strip — more than 500 people were injured, and most passed through nine of Las Vegas’ 14 hospitals. More than 200 went to Sunrise Hospital and Medical Center, and more than 100 went to University Medical Center — the city’s two main trauma centers for handling emergency cases...The hospitals and the medical community are evaluating their performance for a wider report about lessons learned. That information will be disseminated across the country as doctors, nurses and administrators appear at panels in the coming months to share with professionals in their fields...Once hospitals complete their internal review, they will be shared with one another how they responded and what the challenges were...They will look at what they did well and how they would do something differently in the future...Las Vegas will share with the rest of the world the “best practices” it learned from the mass shooting, just like it did after the MGM Grand fire...

A Las Vegas investigator with the state Board of Medical Examiners was sexually harassed by her boss and retaliated against by co-workers after complaining to her superiors...The lawsuit...by investigator Lara Ward, alleges that the sexual harassment was part of a pattern of unprofessional conduct by officials in the state office that investigates complaints against licensed medical practitioners...While the sexual harassment claims form the core of the lawsuit, Ward also levels numerous allegations of unprofessional conduct by various members of the board. Among them, the complaint alleges that:

■ Andreas held personal vendettas against certain physicians, whom he targeted by keeping cases open after doctors were cleared of accusations.

■ Board officials closed several investigations of malpractice concerning high-profile physicians.

■ Doctors sued by a major insurance company for fraud had malpractice cases administratively closed. Those cases accused doctors of misuse of spinal cord and cervical injections and opioids.

■ Opioid overprescription investigations were delayed, including those resulting in death. The delays were part of an overall pattern of mishandling of overdose cases that included closure after lab reports were misread.

■ Female co-workers in the Las Vegas office favored by Andreas were promoted to investigative positions even though they lacked required bachelor’s degrees.

■ Ward, who has a bachelor’s in criminal justice from the University of Colorado, was denied a promotion to senior investigator and received poor marks from Chief of Investigations Pamela Castagnola on an employee review because she inquired about the position.

Sunrise Hospital and Medical Center broke ground Friday on a new five-story addition on its campus in Las Vegas...The two-year, $130 million project was prompted by population growth in Clark County and an influx of patients resulting from the Medicaid expansion under the Affordable Care Act. When completed, the 253,000-square-foot addition to an existing building will include 72 surgery and intensive care patient beds, a new pediatric cardiovascular unit and imaging and laboratory space...It also will add 10 children’s emergency beds and a pharmacy...

Pfizer is in a tug of war with several states that intend to use some of its drugs to carry out executions...The drugmaker sent letters last month to both Nevada and Nebraska asking for the return of drugs, which include the sedative diazepam and the opioid painkiller fentanyl, if the states intended to use them for executions...The company said it would reimburse the states...Nevada has already indicated it does not intend to return the drugs, which the state obtained from wholesaler Cardinal Health...“We have communicated to the Departments of Correction in the 31 states permitting use of lethal injection for capital punishment that Pfizer strongly objects to the use of its products as lethal injections for capital punishment. We have asked all such states to return any Hospira or Pfizer manufactured Restricted Product in their possession and provided them with procedures to follow in return for a full refund.”...Nevada, in its first execution in 11 years, wants to use an execution cocktail containing the never-before-tried combination of diazepam, fentanyl and the muscle paralytic cisatracurium...Last week's scheduled execution was delayed while the state supreme court reviews the matter after a state judge rejected the prison system's intent to use cisatracurium in the lethal cocktail. The state attorney general is appealing that decision.