Remains of nearly 800 babies, kids may be recovered, identified during excavation in Ireland

An excavation at the site of a former Catholic home for babies and unmarried women was launched on Monday by officials in Ireland to identify the remains of roughly 800 babies and young children who died at the home.
According to The Associated Press, the excavation was launched by Irish authorities this week at the former Bon Secours Mother and Baby Home in Tuam, County Galway, which is located in the western part of Ireland. The outlet noted that the Bon Secours Mother and Baby Home, which was run by Catholic nuns until it was shut down in 1961, was one of many similar institutions that provided homes for unmarried pregnant women and orphans throughout the 20th century in Ireland.
The Associated Press reported that historian Catherine Coreless investigated almost 800 death certificates in 2014 for almost 800 babies and young children who died at the Bon Secours Mother and Baby Home from the 1920s to 1961. However, despite tracking down hundreds of death certificates, Coreless was only able to find one child's burial record, according to the outlet.
After the historian's investigation, investigators discovered a mass grave located in an underground sewage structure on the Bon Secours Mother and Baby Home property that contained the remains of young children and babies, according to The Associated Press. The outlet noted that a DNA analysis determined that the remains were from children as young as 35 weeks of gestation to children as old as 3 years.
READ MORE: Pics: Suspect arrested for digging up grave site
'It's a very, very difficult, harrowing story and situation,' Irish Prime Minister Micheal Martin said in a Monday statement obtained by The Associated Press. 'We have to wait to see what unfolds now as a result of the excavation.'
According to The Associated Press, Daniel MacSweeney, who is leading the excavation effort at the Bon Secours Mother and Baby Home property, explained that survivors and family members will be able to view the progress at the mass grave site in a matter of weeks. However, the outlet reported that the excavation project could take a total of two years.
MacSweeney said, 'This is a unique and incredibly complex excavation.'
The Associated Press reported that the remains recovered from the excavation site will be preserved and analyzed by forensic experts and that identified remains will be returned to the family members of the deceased babies and young children.

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Pulse Check Mike Slubowski is the president and CEO of Trinity Health, one of the nation's largest nonprofit health systems spanning 26 states with a network of 93 hospitals. This week, I connected with Slubowski to discuss the expected impact of proposed Medicaid cuts. For context, Trinity serves 875,000 Medicaid patients each year. If that enrollment is slashed by the predicted 12 percent, it would result in 105,000 fewer patients across the system. As it stands, Medicaid payments fall short of covering the system's costs by $500 million each year. The proposed cuts would add an annual loss of $600 million to that shortfall, according to data the health system shared with me. Here's what Slubowski told me during our Pulse Check. Editor's Note: Some responses have been edited for length and clarity. Mike Slubowski is the president and CEO of Trinity Health. Mike Slubowski is the president and CEO of Trinity Health. Trinity Health How do you foresee Medicaid cuts impacting Trinity Health's financial stability and long-term strategy? You can't cut billions from Medicaid and not affect people in the health of communities. Up to 10 million people losing coverage as a result of this is going to be devastating for our communities. We know when people don't have access to care, they forego preventive care and they end up in the emergency departments, which are already overflowing. It results in more costly care and interventions. Our calculations just on the House version—not all the stuff the Senate is now considering, which are even maybe more onerous for us—we estimate an [annual] impact of $600 million to our budget once implementation happens over the next couple of years. As a faith-based, not-for-profit health system, we don't set goals to earn big margins or profits. In fact, this year, we've been running at three-tenths-of-a-percent operating margin. If we were living large, three percent would be the maximum [operating margin] that we believe we would need to reinvest in our future. So we don't set high aspirations. But right now, we're barely above break-even. And so you can think about the impact of $600 million [lost], and what it's going to do for our communities. About 20 percent of our patients are on Medicaid—up to 25 percent in some of the communities that we serve. That's a significant share. Specifically, what sort of ripple effect would this have on your ability to sustain your workforce and the services you offer? Clearly, we're going to have to make decisions about services, locations, administrative support costs, some of our work on community health and wellbeing that's proactive instead of reactive. We have a lot of difficult decisions. Even before these cuts, every year, the increases in Medicare and Medicaid payments—and even the commercial payers that push back—are far below inflation. Medical cost inflation right now with supplies, medical device suppliers, wages and a gap every year that we have to close of over $1 billion dollars between revenue and cost. Imagine adding $600 million onto that gap every year that we have to close. It's substantial. Are there past policy or funding shifts that health systems can draw on to inform their response here? Not at this magnitude. I want to emphasize: revenue increases are below inflation. Proposed Medicare, Medicaid increases in payment are below inflation levels. The commercial payers are reluctant to do increases. And frankly, the employers [that sponsor employees' insurance coverage] know that they are subsidizing federal and state underpayment as it is, and they can't withstand more cost. So, you know, we're in a bit of a vise over this whole situation. There have been a lot of statements about, "Well, all we're focusing on is able-bodied adults, and we're getting rid of waste, fraud and abuse." But we have financial counselors that sit with people every day to try to help them qualify for Medicaid or other coverage. We know that there is not that level of waste, fraud and abuse in the program. There are very rigorous regulations and rules about who can be covered and how they can be covered, and we just don't see that this is an elimination of simple "waste, fraud and abuse" of the system. C-Suite Shuffles Amazon Health Services is reorganizing, simplifying the business into six units called "pillars," CNBC reported. The move comes after a recent string of leadership departures, including former Amazon Vice President of Healthcare Aaron Martin and Chief Medical Officer Dr. Sunita Mishra, and former Chief Medical Officer of Amazon Pharmacy Dr. Vin Gupta. Internal Amazon and One Medical leaders were appointed to helm each new pillar, which are as follows: (1) One Medical Clinical Care Delivery, (2) One Medical Clinical Operations and Performance, (3) AHS Strategic Growth and Network Development, (4) AHS Store, Tech and Marketing, (5) AHS Compliance and (6) AHS Pharmacy Services. Gary Herbst is retiring as CEO of Kaweah Health after 34 years with the Visalia, California-based health system. His departure is effective June 30, 2026, and the health system's board of directors will launch a nationwide search for his successor as early as July. Wisp, the women's telehealth company, has appointed former White House physician Dr. Jennifer Peña to serve as its chief medical officer. Her resume also includes the CMO title at Nurx, K Health and Vault Health. Executive Edge Dr. Inderpreet Dhillon is the senior medical director at Grow Therapy and previously helmed the mental health virtual care department at the Permanente Medical Group. As both an organizational leader and a psychiatrist—who still sees patients—he's well-acquainted with the challenges facing today's physicians and health care executives. This week, I connected with Dhillon to learn how he prioritizes wellness for himself and his colleagues as a mental health professional. He emphasized the importance of being a good listener, leading with empathy and modeling vulnerability—qualities derived from a difficult lesson he learned himself: If you push yourself too hard, "the outcomes are not good, personally and professionally. A little over four years ago, I was working 40 to 60 hours a week, went back to school to get my MBA, and my twin girls were six at that point. I'm juggling that responsibility of being a father, having big administrative responsibilities, going to school, managing patient care—and I had a massive heart attack in my early forties. "I remember lying down in bed at the cardiac ICU, and it was funny: there was a cemetery across the street, and that's what my view was. And I'm like, 'I'm here, but I could have been there.' "There were a couple of realizations. What is most important for me? Of course, work is important for me because I chose this profession and I chose to be in a leadership role to bring the systemic change which I believe needs to happen. Kids are important to me. Family is important to me. So my first realization was, hey, I need to balance this better. The second realization was, I am not Superman. I feel most humans have this perception that nothing bad is going to ever happen to them, until it actually happens to them. Sometimes life comes and punches you smack in your face, and it's a wakeup call. "I openly share this experience with my teams, with my bad things can happen to you, physically and mentally, if you do not slow down and understand what your priorities are, the workload you're carrying, the things you're juggling. Sharing that doesn't make me any weaker. Actually, it makes me more real and human for my team and my colleagues. "These are important lessons, right? Not everybody has to learn them the hard way. Let's say that these are things which can be prevented and can be prevented if the culture is the right culture, if there is enough safety in the [organization], if the leaders are modeling those behaviors themselves." This is a preview of Access Health—Tap here to get this newsletter delivered straight to your inbox.