MONEY & POLITICS
Headshot photos of Mayor Bill Peduto and state Rep. Ed Gainey. Peduto wears glasses and a gray blazer. Gainey wears a black vest and gray shirt.

More than $1 million has gone into Pittsburgh’s mayoral race. Where did it come from?

By |

Tuesday marks the end of Pittsburgh’s contentious mayoral race in which incumbent Bill Peduto and leading challenger state Rep. Ed Gainey raised more than $1.2 million combined in campaign funds since Jan. 1. The financial records of their campaigns show markedly different strategies and donor bases. While Peduto holds a major financial advantage, raising far more money and pulling in tens of thousands of dollars in out-of-state contributions, Gainey leads in small donations and has more evenly dispersed support across the city. PublicSource analyzed each candidate’s donations.

HEALTH
Dr. Jamie Wright leans over a metal railing inside UPMC Magee-Womens Hospital. She is wearing a white coat, black sweater and yellow face mask. The wall behind her is yellow.

Could the pandemic bring a baby boom to the Pittsburgh region? Early data is mixed.

By |

Laurie Sloan and her husband have always known they wanted to have a big family. The stay-at-home mom, who is now pregnant with her fourth child, didn’t let the pandemic stop their plans. “We were stuck at home and hanging out together and it was kind of fun watching all the kids be close in age and play together,” she said. 

Sloan, who is now expecting a son in June, thought being pregnant during the pandemic would allow her to spend more time preparing for his arrival. “I thought by the time the baby was here, life would be back to normal,” she said. “That’s obviously not going to happen.”

For Sloan, pandemic pregnancy has been bittersweet.

COVID-19
Endocrinologist Dr. Monica Gomberg has seen a decline in patients in her private practice since the COVID-19 outbreak began in the U.S. (Photo by Kimberly Rowen/PublicSource)

Allegheny County’s independent medical providers are struggling to stay open, even as healthcare system braces for COVID-19 influx

By |

Doctors at three independent offices told PublicSource that they are considering cutting back hours and staff — or have already done so. To comply with an order from Gov. Wolf to stop elective surgeries, some local providers have had to cut out some or all of their business. And many patients are canceling and delaying their appointments. While some patients have turned toward telemedicine, it still hasn't been enough to offset the lost revenue.

COVID-19

Thousands of patients in Pittsburgh region have turned to telemedicine due to coronavirus fears

By |

As people in the Pittsburgh area are seeking advice about the coronavirus without exposing or being exposed to the virus, local hospitals have been seeing the number of patients seeking urgent care by video chat skyrocket in recent days, according to UPMC and Allegheny Health Network. Conversely, the number of patients seeking urgent care in person has fallen.

MONEY & POLITICS
UPMC Mercy Hospital. (Photo by Jay Manning/ PublicSource)

UPMC Mercy expansion: How the ‘community benefits agreement’ between UPMC and the city came to be

By |

Last spring, Louis Berry III was feeling mildly optimistic. As a labor activist and retired housekeeper with the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center [UPMC], he felt for the first time in April 2018 that he and activists might be able to get some concessions from his former employer. In Berry’s mind, he said, the not-for-profit hospital chain and healthcare provider is a behemoth that pays some of its employees too little and causes others to go into medical debt. Last spring, Berry thought he had reason to be hopeful: UPMC needed city approval to build a state-of-the-art hospital in Pittsburgh’s Uptown neighborhood. Some activists weren’t opposed to the new facility but when the city’s Planning Commission made a recommendation that UPMC work on establishing a community benefits agreement [CBA] with the city, Berry and others saw it as an opportunity to demand and negotiate concessions.