Morning Briefing
Summaries of health policy coverage from major news organizations
Viewpoints: Who Should Have The Final Say In Assisted Suicide?; Doctors Are Struggling With Mental Health
A number of countries — and a few American states — permit some form of assisted suicide for terminally ill patients, but Canada is one of only a handful that have legalized euthanasia. Medical practitioners are permitted to use drugs to end the lives of patients who are suffering, even those who are not immediately terminal. (John M. Crisp, 12/12)
My colleague, Skip, was the kind of primary care doctor I always wanted to be. He could riff on the evaluation of a patient with new joint or liver inflammation like an improvising jazz musician. He could discern a familiar rash in the most puzzling plumes of hot, angry bumps. When I had lab results that flummoxed me, I’d go see Skip. Six months before the Covid-19 pandemic emerged, Skip died by suicide. (Audrey Provenzano, 12/13)
In his assessment of governments’ work to provide sufficient mental health resources to their citizens, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, the director-general of the World Health Organization, warned that “good intentions are not being met with investment." (John Q. Young, 12/13)
If you’re a parent with a young child, odds are that your child is or has recently been sick, sending you and your partner scrambling to figure out who will miss work again to stay home. (Sarah Hunter Simanson, 12/12)
Years ago, I read about an exploratory program that showed nature imagery to people in prison to improve their mental health. (Merete Mueller, 12/13)
In 2020, healthcare costs represented nearly 20% of the United States’ gross domestic product, a sharp rise from 2019 and more than four times higher than in 1960. COVID-19 helped fuel the rapid acceleration of healthcare costs, pushing hospitals to the brink. For America’s urban safety net hospitals, these increases have made it even harder to provide care in high-need communities. (Julianne Malveaux, 12/12)
