WORCESTER, Mass. - Every year, UMass Memorial Health collects unwanted firearms in exchange for gift cards, and now they're putting the guns they destroy to use.

They've partnered with a blacksmith and students from Valley Regional High School to turn the old firearms into gardening tools. Students from UMass Medical School are using them to harvest vegetables from the garden on campus. The firearms were made into shovels, hoes and even some household décor. The students started work on the garden in the spring and want the food grown here to help people in the community. 

As new COVID-19 cases increased in Worcester for the 10th consecutive week, the head of UMass Memorial Health pleaded with the stakeholders involved in the nurse’s strike at Saint Vincent Hospital to find a resolution, referring to the available hospital beds in the city as a “crisis situation.”

WORCESTER — The head of UMass Memorial Health pleaded Friday for a resolution to the strike at St. Vincent Hospital, saying the city was in “a crisis situation” due to a resurgent pandemic and reduced hospital capacity while nurses are on the picket line.

WORCESTER — When Dr. Mitchell Sokoloff was training as a urologist in the early 1990s, he recalled that the advice for surgical incisions was “the bigger the better.”

Fast forward to Tuesday, and his two incisions to remove a patient’s prostate totaled only about an inch and 2 millimeters, thanks to the latest advancement in laparoscopic surgery at UMass Memorial Medical Center: the Single-Port DaVinci robot.

Worcester, Mass.-based UMass Memorial Medical Center is grappling with staffing strain caused by a monthslong nurses' strike, a COVID-19 surge fueled by the delta variant and a labor shortage.

UMass Memorial Health has announced it will give caregivers an appreciation bonus this month for their dedication working through the COVID-19 pandemic.

Officials at UMass Memorial Medical Center say a lower vaccination rate in central Massachusetts has contributed to a shortage of hospital beds.

WORCESTER, Mass. - UMass Memorial Health president and CEO says we're now in a third surge of the virus.

It comes as they now know the immunity provided by the vaccine starts to decrease within a year.

If you want to negotiate a permanent work-from-home situation, your tactics should be similar to salary negotiations, says Pooja Saraff, Ph.D., a psychology specialist at the University of Massachusetts Medical School. Figure out a way you can compromise on a solution, whether that means you come in one week a month, or you have regular one-on-one Zoom meetings with coworkers, or another solution that benefits both parties. “Put some suggestions on the table and be willing to compromise on a solution,” she adds.