BOSTON — The Federal Emergency Management Agency will be sending more than $2.3 million to the Commonwealth of Massachusetts to reimburse UMass Memorial Health Care, Inc. for the costs of fully staffing the emergency room at UMass Memorial HealthAlliance-Clinton Hospital during the COVID-19 pandemic.

It joined community partners CENTRO, NewVue Communities, and UMass Memorial Health to host a virtual town hall last month that was open the public and featured a panel discussion and a question-and-answer session, enabling attendees to ask questions about vaccines and getting vaccinated and learn more about the COVID-19 omicron variant surge.

FITCHBURG — Rollstone Bank & Trust announced Friday a donation of $50,000 to the UMass Memorial Health’s HealthAlliance-Clinton Hospital to expand local complementary care resources to cancer patients, according to a press release from the bank.

The donation will also be used to increase access to those most vulnerable populations that historically do not have access to life-saving preventative measures or subsequent cancer care.

LEOMINSTER — UMass Memorial Health-HealthAlliance-Clinton Hospital has received the American Heart Association’s Gold Plus Get With The Guidelines-Stroke Quality Achievement Award for its commitment to ensuring stroke patients receive the most appropriate treatment according to nationally recognized, research-based guidelines, according to an announcement from the hospital.

Steve Roach, the interim president of UMass Memorial HealthAlliance-Clinton Hospital, which has its main offices in Leominster, has been named to the position on a permanent basis.

Roach's appointment, which was announced Monday in a staff memo by Doug Brown, the president of UMass Memorial Community Hospitals, also keeps him as president of UMass Memorial's Marlborough Hospital, a position he's held since 2013.

The Birthing Center at UMass Memorial HealthAlliance-Clinton Hospital Leominster campus received a very special and meaningful donation of a Cuddle Cot on Nov. 19, prompted by Katie Hawthorne, whose daughter, Shaylyn, was stillborn in 2018 at 34 weeks two days, and her sister-in-law Lisa Hawthorne.

Before the first case of COVID-19 was confirmed in a patient back in March, the UMass Memorial HealthAlliance-Clinton Hospital Leominster Campus was preparing for the worst.

Hospital officials knew the pandemic was heading their way for weeks, and they responded by taking several key steps to prepare for it.

Four months later, Chief Medical Officer Dr. Charlie Cavagnaro says that while the virus surges in other states, he believes the facility succeeded under difficult circumstances and is better prepared for a pandemic in the future.

Speed and accuracy can make all the difference for physicians facing a life-threatening situation, especially when it entails the well-being of a newborn.

There's no time for a wrong or delayed decision when an infant's life hangs in the balance.

A report in May brought troubling news for Worcester: In 2018, 97 city residents died from opioid overdoses, the highest number ever recorded, up from a previous high of 82 in 2015. Worcester County also hit a new high of 283 deaths from overdoses of the drugs.

In contrast, the report – produced by the Massachusetts Executive Office of Health and Human Services – found the statewide numbers declined slightly for the second year in a row, from a high of 2,100 in 2016 to 2,033.