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Ńī¹óåś“«Ć½Ņīl Health News covers the health issues facing people who live in Americaās rural reaches.
Ńī¹óåś“«Ć½Ņīl Health News is working to collect and post complete application materials, by state, here and will update this repository as new materials, released in response to public records requests, arrive.
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Veterans Affairs officials are flying COVID-19 vaccines to remote locations in Montana and Alaska to quickly inoculate rural veterans before the drugs expire.
Louisianaās St. James Parish Hospital thought the vaccine would mean the end of its long covid fight. Then the ICU beds surrounding them ran out.
KHN and California Healthline staff made the rounds on national and local media this week to discuss their stories. Hereās a collection of their appearances.
In the past two months, covid-related infection and death rates have jumped exponentially in Californiaās least populated counties. The winter surge has scarred corners of the state that went largely unscathed for much of 2020.
Lawmakers answered pleas from strained health facilities in rural areas, agreed to cover the cost of training more new doctors, sought to strengthen efforts to equalize mental health coverage with that of physical medicine and instructed the federal government to collect data that could be used to rein in high medical bills.
The oxygen delivery infrastructure is crumbling under pressure in Los Angeles and other covid hot spots, jeopardizing patientsā access to precious air and limiting hospital turnover.
Recent deaths on a small Native American reservation in Montana have underlined the heightened risks for Indigenous youths and how suicide prevention programs are struggling to operate during the pandemic.
After missteps in Washington, each state and county is left to juggle where to send vaccines first and how to get them to each nursing home, hospital local health department and even school.
Hospitals across the country are struggling as staffers get infected with the coronavirus. It's especially tough for small, rural hospitals, where even one doctor out sick can upend patient capacity.
Critically ill rural patients are often sent to city hospitals for high-level treatment, and as their numbers grow, some urban hospitals are buckling under the added strain. Meanwhile, mask-wearing and other pandemic prevention measures remain spotty in rural counties.
A shortage of nurses has turned hospital staffing into a sort of national bidding war, with hospitals willing to pay exorbitant wages to secure the nurses they need. That threatens to shift the supply of nurses toward more affluent areas.
KHN and California Healthline staff made the rounds on national and local media this week to discuss their stories. Hereās a collection of their appearances.
Crooked Mediaās āAmerica Dissectedā explores the rural health crisis and the COVID-19 pandemic. Podcast guest KHN Editor-in-Chief Elisabeth Rosenthal said: āI expect weāll see a lot more rural hospital failures.ā
In Fort Scott, Kansas, the Community Health Centerās big green-and-white sign replaced Mercy Hospitalās name on the front of the townās massive medical building. In the final chapter of Season One: āNo Mercy,ā we have an appointment to see whatās inside.
Frequently employed by staffing agencies based in other states, nurses and other healthcare professionals can find themselves working through crisis without advocates or adequate safety equipment.
Meet Josh. Heās a teenager in Fort Scott, Kansas, who dropped out of high school around the same time the townās hospital closed. He says those two things are related.
KHN and California Healthline staff made the rounds on national and local media this week to discuss their stories. Hereās a collection of their appearances.
The hunt for good cancer treatment often means miles on the road, time spent waiting and exhaustion from treatment and transit. āThe further you have to travel to get care, the less likely that you are going to take that effort to do that,ā said Boban Mathew, an oncologist in southeastern Kansas.
Mercy Hospital and the people of Fort Scott, Kansas, have a long, tangled history. To understand what the town lost when the hospital shut its doors, we rewind the story to 1886.
Fort Scott, Kansas, went without an ER for 18 days, after the local hospital shut down. Documenting local trauma during that ādark periodā helped investigative reporter Sarah Jane Tribble unravel some of the complications that come after a rural hospital closes.
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