Morning Briefing
Summaries of health policy coverage from major news organizations
'Shock To The Body': Mental Health Damage Left In Ian's Wake In Florida
While hurricanes are known for causing swift and often devastating physical destruction, they can also cause equally serious emotional damage, said Dr. Janette Nesheiwat on Saturday, Oct. 1. "It's a traumatizing experience," said Nesheiwat, a board-certified family and emergency medical professional and a Fox News medical contributor, during a "Fox & Friends Weekend" segment. (Rousselle, 10/1)
Staff members at the Health Park Medical Center in Fort Myers told NBC News that the facility's running water went out Wednesday and hasn't yet been restored. If water service isn't back soon, the workers said, they fear disease outbreaks and infections in the wake of the storm. (Hampton, Rosenblatt, Bendix and Siemaszko, 10/1)
In other health news from across the U.S. —
Again heralding California as a refuge from discriminatory policies in conservative states, Gov. Gavin Newsom signed a bill into law on Thursday that aims to protect transgender youths and their families from bans against gender-affirming care. Senate Bill 107 by state Sen. Scott Wiener (D-San Francisco) provides for a range of safeguards meant to block out-of-state attempts to penalize families that come to California seeking medical treatment for transgender children and teens or move to the state to avoid consequences for already seeking that treatment elsewhere. (Mays, 9/29)
In an effort to smooth out barriers to health care and keep people from getting sick enough to need 911 in the first place, more and more agencies are creating a new class of paramedic, one that regularly visits people’s homes. The house calls bring routine care to patients, connect them with services and prevent emergencies before they hit. (Merrilees, 9/30)
The first-ever gathering of chief heat officers from cities around the globe brought civic leaders from countries as diverse as Chile, Greece and Sierra Leone to Washington, D.C., recently. The all-female group of urban policymakers shared the challenging role of adapting to the harsh realities of climate change today. (Sisson, 10/3)
This past winter, as Covid cases were beginning to decline, state health officials in New York were expecting a respite after two exhausting years and a chance to refocus on run-of-the-mill public health duties. Almost a year later, they are still waiting. (Banco, 10/2)
Michael Begnaud of Liberty felt confident that the medical exam he needed to help prove he was disabled would go his way. His swollen hands, inflamed with gout, so pained him he wore braces on his wrists. The decay of his retinas from incurable retinitis pigmentosa was slowly robbing him of sight. (Adler, 10/2)
Del Jacobs likes almost everything about her job. As a SNAP-Ed community worker in Illinois, she likes getting to know the regulars at local food pantries and teaching them about healthy eating on a budget. She likes working with children, especially since she doesn’t have any kids of her own. (Cronin, 10/3)