Seeking interviewees of Medically Fragile children for Bloomberg News story

Sharing a request from our partner agency in SC:

We've received a request from Bloomberg News healthcare reporter, Carolyn Chen, who is interested in doing a story on barriers facing Medically Fragile children. She is seeking families who 1) might be trying to get their medically fragile child home from the hospital but can't because of the lack of home nurses,  2) families who have had trouble getting a home nurse and as a result, has stayed in hospital longer than necessary,  3) families who figured out how to problem-solve this issue and has made it happen, 4) other families who might not be sure they are eligible for this story, but are interested in chatting with reporter because of their experiences.   Additional information quoted by reporter: "In a nutshell, I'm interested in writing about medically fragile children who don't need to be in the hospital but do need round-the-clock nursing care. It seems that there is a shortage of nurses in a number of states and, as a result, there are kids who can't leave the hospital even though they are ready to be discharged, or who end up in nursing homes. I've been told that part of the problem in some states seems to be that rates of Medicaid reimbursement for these nurses are far lower than what they'd get in private plans.   I was wondering if (1) P2P may have parents in the network who are currently living through this issue and who might be willing to tell me their story. I will be very respectful of their privacy concerns (if they only want to use first names or initials for their children, for example). It doesn't matter where in the U.S. they are, I'm aiming to do a national story. and (2) if P2P knows of anyone who would have an estimate of how many medically fragile children there are in the U.S. and whether that number is growing or not. My understanding is that definitions vary, I'm interested in children who need round-the-clock care of some sort, whether it is just monitoring a trach or more intensive, but are eligible for that to be done at home." If you are interested in being interviewed, please contact Amy Holbert at 803.252.0914 oraholbert@familyconnectionsc.org.