St. Peter's Health

Hospitals self-report how much they give in community benefits, and their reporting processes are opaque. Even so, KHN’s analysis found that some of Montana’s wealthiest hospitals were spending well below the state and national averages.

The Montana State News Bureau first reported in October that St. Peter’s Health said three public officials harassed and threatened its providers when doctors declined a COVID-19 patient’s request for a treatment not authorized for use against COVID-19.

Montana’s Attorney General is facing a probe into his behavior after the Montana State News Bureau reported he and two other public officials allegedly harassed hospital officials in Helena. MTPR's Freddy Monares spoke with the Montana State News Bureau’s Holly Michels about the story.

A special legislative counsel will investigate allegations that Attorney General Austin Knudsen abused his power to intervene on behalf of a patient at a hospital in Helena.

HELENA, Mont. (AP) — Democratic leaders in the Montana Legislature are asking for an investigation into whether the attorney general abused his power by sending a Montana Highway Patrol trooper to a Helena hospital over a complaint from the family of a COVID-19 patient.

“Everybody is hard-up for concentrators. We have never run into this kind of shortage. We’ve been sending people home with these oxygen concentrators in record numbers and it’s stressed our supply.”

Officials of St. Peter's Health in Helena said three public officials threatened doctors after they refused to treat a COVID-19 patient with ivermectin, a drug to treat parasites that is not federally approved to treat the respiratory disease,

Gov. Greg Gianforte is sending 70 National Guard troops to hospitals around the state to help health care workers overloaded by COVID patients.

Dr. Shelly Harkins, the president and chief medical officer of Helena’s Saint Peter’s Health made this sobering announcement Thursday morning: “For the first time in my career we are at the point where not every patient in need will get the care we might wish we could give.”

For years, health care workers and people who’ve had to travel for family members’ mental health hospitalizations have been pushing Bozeman’s major hospital system, the nonprofit Bozeman Health, to add a behavioral health unit at its Deaconess Hospital. On Sept. 30, the system’s board plans to consider whether to add one as part of an expansion of its mental health services.