Print version by Bonnie Jean Feldkamp and Kathiann Kowalski
Broadcast version by Mary Schuermann Kuhlman
Reporting for the Eye on Ohio, The Ohio Center for Investigative Journalism-Ohio News Connection Collaboration

The Ohio Department of Health gets daily updates on the total number of beds and ventilators that could be available for COVID-19 patients at hospitals throughout the state.

But so far the agency hasn't provided any hospital-by-hospital breakdown, and the agencies that collect capacity information on the agency's behalf have also declined to release their assessments.

The result: Ohioans don't know how many beds and respirators are available where they live.

Timely and meaningful knowledge could benefit Ohioans from a health perspective, while also helping them understand the range of public policy issues surrounding the crisis.

The availability of resources to care for COVID-19 patients could mean life or death for thousands of Ohioans.

"It's what keeps me awake at night," said Dr. Amy Acton, director of health for the Ohio Department of Health (ODH), of her fear of running out of beds, ventilators and personal protective equipment.

Gov. Mike DeWine echoed "that is what we really fear" at the same Ohio Statehouse Press Conference on March 25.

DeWine has received national recognition for the aggressive actions he's taken to protect the state of Ohio. He and Acton report numbers, and announce action items daily at 2 p.m.

Estimates from The Ohio State University and the Cleveland Clinic project that at Ohio's rate of new COVID-19 patients, the state may have 6,000 or as many as 10,000 a day by late April.

"[A]t the projected peak, we need to go up 3x in our hospital capacity," DeWine tweeted on March 27. "We have a long way to go."

However, neither he nor the department of health has stated where the greatest needs are on a local basis. Nor has baseline information for different areas been made available.

At first, ODH spokeswoman Melanie Amato told Eye on Ohio that the department only gets the aggregate numbers for beds and equipment from the Ohio Hospital Association and that any detailed information would have to come from that organization.

The association's spokesman, John Palmer, declined to release the numbers that they share daily with ODH.

ODH also tracks beds through Surgenet, administered by the Greater Dayton Area Health Information Network.

"We're not actually reporting any bed data or any of the specifics that we're tracking with Surgenet publicly," said Sarah Hackenbracht, president and CEO of the Greater Dayton Hospital Association, calling the database an "internal management tool."

"It's not a public tracking tool for public reporting," Hackenbracht said.

And despite the data collection being done with federal and state funds, "it's a tool that we own and manage through the hospital association. So it's not owned by the Ohio Department of Health or any other entity."

In a state with nearly 45,000 square miles, that local information could tell citizens more about Ohio's readiness to deal with emergencies for all its residents.

Availability of beds and respirators in Cincinnati, for example, would mean little if hot spots of emergencies were concentrated in Ashtabula, nearly 300 miles away by car.

Efforts to get the data independently also met with roadblocks.

Eye on Ohio contacted 30 hospitals in Cleveland and northeast Ohio, asking for their bed and ventilator numbers, as well as any particular notes or requests from each hospital. Only two reported their bed numbers.

Several hospitals noted that they share this information daily with health departments and recommended contacting the ODH for aggregate numbers.

Marlene Harris-Taylor, health reporter for Ideastream.org, reported similar difficulties. Although she was able to obtain a system-wide ventilator count as of March 17, she noted, "Summa Health System in Akron would not share the numbers with me, they just did not want to talk about it."

Michael Bernstein, system director of corporate communications and public relations for Summa Health System in Akron, said that giving out daily updates of capacity numbers to the public was unreasonable, even though those numbers are reported daily to the local and state health departments.

"I think the overall feeling is that giving specific numbers will only cause confusion," he said. "That the numbers change drastically and quickly. If we give numbers at 3:00 those will change by 3:30 making reported information inaccurate.

"Hospitals are communicating and collaborating to get patients the best care possible and can direct resources accordingly. Bed and ventilator numbers of an individual hospital should not direct the patient's decision of where to receive care."

Promoting public health

Information about local hospitals' beds and ventilator availability changes on a day-to-day basis, so Eye on Ohio's goal is to provide local numbers in a way that could be updated daily, along with hospital requests.

Local hospitals' requests and notes could be "really useful," said Rupali Limaye, an expert in public health communication at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. "People are wanting to know what they can do to help." That might include requests for supplies, volunteers, or other things.

She was less certain about how specific numbers for beds and ventilators would translate into action items from a public health perspective.

"Notoriously, as humans, we're really terrible about estimating risk," Limaye said. She worried that plain numbers might create fear, or lead to complacency.

However, when it comes to the coronavirus epidemic, many people already feel anxious, said Dr. Lise Van Susteren, a general and forensic psychiatrist in the Washington area who has studied the impacts of generalized anxiety for another major social problem -- climate change. As she sees it, up-to-date information about local hospitals' beds and equipment could help reduce some of that anxiety.

"One of the major components of anxiety is uncertainty," Van Susteren said.

Specific information that someone can understand in the context of his or her situation can reduce that uncertainty. That's true even if the news "may not be something you want to hear."

"When you replace uncertainty with knowledge, there is an immense sense of relief," she explained. From a mental health perspective, someone can then better process feelings of anxiety, fear or other emotions.

"We can go from that uncertainty to unpacking the elements of the threat -- and unpacking them in terms of what's emotional, what's rational, what's hard data," Van Susteren said. "And something else, then we can order in our minds where the work has to be done."

Along those lines, specific knowledge helps "reframe the social isolation and the feeling of impotence" that many people might feel as a result of the epidemic.

Instead of viewing public health measures as restrictions on personal liberties, information can help "reframe that as an empowering action that we can all do collectively," Van Susteren added. "This is where the light is: It's when we're all working collectively in this."

Informing public discussions

The information also matters for advancing public understanding and discussion of policy issues, said Catherine Turcer, executive director of Common Cause Ohio. In her view, the need for localized information about hospital resources is akin to other situations in which members of the voting public need information.

"The goal really is for the information to be meaningful," Turcer said. In other words, "we need to make sense of the information." Too often, however, information is disclosed in ways so "you can't actually figure out what it means."

"The next part, that's almost more important, is for it [the information] to be timely," she added. So, even when citizens eventually get requested information, it may come "just a little too late" to make a difference.

Other examples where the problem crops up include government budgeting matters and campaign finance disclosures. When it comes to voting, for example, some of Ohio's boards of elections report separately on how many people vote early in person and how many vote by mail. Others just report the total numbers lumped together.

"For us to understand what works and what appeals to voters, it's really helpful to have that information segregated," Turcer said.

The COVID-19 epidemic isn't taking place in a political vacuum either.

"The thing is: Democracy doesn't stop just because there's a pandemic. We have an election that's going on," Turcer noted. "And if 'we the people' has meaning, that means we need information from government so that we can identify problems and possibly solutions, and so we can also identify corruption, and then come up with possible solutions.

"We are in a weird age of misinformation, and of people providing talking points that are not completely accurate. And we need to make sure that we have as much good information as possible," Turcer added.

"That's why...it's so important to have that source material, so we can all together figure out what's real, Source material can let disinterested parties verify aggregate numbers, for example. Or, it can identify where shortages may be especially acute.

"When we go back to the source material, then we have the ability to actually have a conversation about facts.

"Every single specific case of not getting information highlights how this is a systemic problem,.

This collaboration is funded in part by the Ohio News Media Foundation, The Cleveland Foundation and The George Gund Foundation, and is produced in association with Media in the Public Interest.


get more stories like this via email

The Montana chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union has filed class-action lawsuit challenging a measure barring people from listing a gender on their birth certificate other than the one they were born with.

Montana lawmakers passed Senate Bill 280 in 2021, which requires a court order to change gender on a birth certificate. A state court issued an injunction against the measure but now the state health department has put a total ban on changes to sex designations on birth certificates.

Akilah Deernose, executive director of the ACLU of Montana, called the measure part of a "concerted and unrelenting attack" on the civil rights of people who identify as transgender.

"We've previously sued on the birth certificate issue," Deernose pointed out. "Once again, we're seeing the state implement laws and rules and policies that unfairly target transgender people."

On the other side, some people argued birth certificates contain vital statistics and should be based on the facts at the time of birth. The suit awaits action in state court.

Deernose noted beyond privacy rights, the birth certificate measure has the potential to force a person to declare themselves to be someone other than who they are, based on their declared identity.

"And who they know themselves to be," Deernose observed. "That puts them at risk of discrimination and also forces them to out themselves every time they share those identity documents."

The suit also challenges a motor vehicle department policy forbidding changing sex designations on driver's licenses.

New York state lawmakers have appointed members to the Community Commission on Reparations Remedies, created through legislation Gov. Kathy Hochul signed in 2023.

Its goal is to examine the legacy of slavery and its continuing impacts on black New Yorkers. The commission will develop a report outlining recommendations for addressing these inequities.

Linda J. Mann, co-founder of the African American Redress Network, said there is one problem facing the commission: a lack of funds.

"It is absolutely imperative that funds for these types of task force, because of the amount of research that's going into it, is an imperative," Mann emphasized.

While the bill had plenty of Democratic support, it drew the ire of Republican lawmakers.

Many areas of the country are determining how to redress past disparities Black people face. A recent report found philanthropies have received millions in funds stemming from depriving Black people of opportunities to build wealth similar to those of their white counterparts.

The New York commission will have to present its findings in 2025.

A 2021 Pew Research survey showed three-quarters of Black Americans surveyed support reparations, while only 18% of white Americans support it.

Along with the U.S., countries worldwide are navigating reparations, with Mann noting they are not always compensatory.

"We're not talking about just altering economic wellness," Mann pointed out. "There's other ways in which historical harms have led to disparities in education, in health, in housing."

Beyond New York, California is the only other state to have created a reparations commission. California's reparations task force recommended some compensatory reparations based on factors such as health harms, mass incarceration and over-policing, housing discrimination and the devaluation of African American businesses. But, it wasn't certain how much all of this would amount to.

By Faith Fistler for Kent State NewsLab.
Broadcast version by Nadia Ramlagan.

The first time Tyana Barton was singled out because of her hair was when she was told to straighten it before a dance recital.

"That was like the first time in maybe 10 years I've ever had to straighten my hair. So I was like, distraught about that," Barton said. "And everybody was just like, 'it's not that serious'. And I'm like, 'it is, though. It is.'"

At the predominantly white studio in Dayton, Barton's instructor wanted all the dancers to look the same for a particular performance. Barton, being the only Black dancer, was asked to straighten her afro-textured hair to comply.

"I'm looking at all of these other girls with long hair, and it's just like perfectly straight. And then I'm having to go over my hair several times with the straightener just to get it to any form. It made me super emotional," said Barton, who is now a fashion merchandising student at Kent State University.

In Ohio, there is no statewide legal protection against hair-based discrimination from employers and schools. Individuals can be told to change their afros, braids, dreadlocks and twists or denied employment opportunities if it does not align with dress code standards.

The Creating a Respectful and Open World for Natural Hair Act, otherwise known as the CROWN Act, would provide statutory protection for individuals discriminated against for wearing protective hairstyles unique to Black culture.

Rep. Juanita Brent (D-Cleveland) has been trying to get the act off the house floor since 2020. In 2023, she reintroduced House Bill 178 for the third time, now with bipartisan support from republican Rep. Jamie Callender (R-Concord).

"This is my life story. My hair may be straight now, but most times my hair is in braids," Brent said. "And I just think it's crazy that there are people who are being removed from classrooms, who are not allowed to participate in sports events and are being removed from job opportunities because they're choosing to have their hair in braids and afros."

The legislation has already passed in cities such as Columbus, Akron, Cincinnati and Cleveland Heights.

"There are so many places where discrimination is occurring. So sometimes it takes a lot longer to do it in every city, and every community," she said. "Sometimes people don't realize the need for it until it happens to your neighbor, your grandchild, it happens to yourself."

The Ohio Chamber of Commerce has testified against H.B. 178, arguing that it "increases civil liability for employers, limits at-will employment in our state, and hampers the ability for businesses to set their own workplace policies."

Kevin Shimp, who testified on behalf of the Chamber, did not respond to interview requests.

The legislation is currently with the House Civil Justice Committee and has until December 2024 to pass.

"Controlling people's hair is almost like putting people in their place and saying you don't belong here," Brent said.

The history of what is considered an acceptable presentation of Black hair in the United States dates back to slavery when European aesthetics became the standard, said Mwatabu Okantah, department chair and professor of Africana Studies at Kent State University.

"On the one hand, many of our people have just ignored it and have lived according to our own aesthetic values, even within the context of being here in the United States," Okantah said. "Then, others of our people have internalized it and have struggled with extremely negative perceptions of ourselves, seeing ourselves the way white society sees us."

Black people's response to the European aesthetic has gone through cycles of assimilating to the social norm to embracing natural hairstyles in spite of it. Okantah said the cultural shift in recent years could be attributed to changing attitudes and Black people holding more positions of power.

"Enough of us now are scholars, mental health professionals, lawyers, and politicians. And so we have more tools to take that back. So I think the CROWN Act came out of that," he said.

The CROWN Act was introduced in California in 2019. It is now law in around two dozen states. The House of Representatives approved the CROWN Act in 2022, but the Senate did not.

Wendy Greene, a professor at Drexel University Thomas R. Kline School of Law and founder of #FreetheHair, has served as an advisor since the CROWN Act was conceived and has found the experience "rewarding".

"It's been really great to be able to see how this legislation is empowering young people to be advocates, young people to express their racial and cultural identities freely in their schools and their workplaces," Greene said. "And to see in turn, how people are using this legislation to educate and enrich others who may not really be familiar with this kind of discrimination because it's not their experience."

While the legislation will not end racial discrimination, the CROWN Act means employers could be found financially responsible for an individual's loss of job opportunity and emotional or psychological damage, Greene said.

"The major legal obligation is to just to stop engaging in the discrimination in and of itself," she said.


Faith Fistler wrote this article for Kent State News Lab. This collaboration is produced in association with Media in the Public Interest and funded in part by the George Gund Foundation.


get more stories like this via email