By Zoe Corneli
San Francisco's public heath program, Healthy San Francisco, services nearly 47,000 uninsured patients. Some of those patients are young, educated professionals, the subject of a three-part series we are reporting. In part two, KALW's Zoe Corneli speaks with one member of Healthy San Francisco who is frustrated with the program. Her experience mirrors that of a third of participants who reported to the independent Kaiser Family Foundation that at least one aspect of getting care is more difficult now than before they joined the program.
Hepatitis C tore through Las Vegas in February 2008, prompting health officials to call for 40,000 people to be tested for the disease. With estimates of more than 100 cases stemming from the outbreak and possibly thousands of infections that went unreported, it was later declared the largest Hepatitis C outbreak in US history, putting more people at risk than all previous outbreaks combined.
On Tuesday, I posted the first half of my “Top 10 list” of noteworthy health journalism. Here’s the second half. It bears repeating: this definitely isn’t a best-of list, and admittedly, it’s print-centric. There’s lots of excellent work out there that I didn’t have a chance to read or view or listen to. But the five stories below are worth reading, and learning from.
Dr. F.D. Toms, a New Jersey doctor, found himself in a bind.
Rumors had been running around town that he had been sleeping with another man’s wife. The spurned husband, William Smith, showed up at the doctor’s office demanding to see him.
Toms panicked. Seeing Smith charging at him, Toms grabbed a container of sulphuric acid and threw it in Smith’s face. Toms said later that he thought he had grabbed a bottle of ammonia.
ReportingonHealth’s Antidote blogger, William Heisel, recently posted his 10 favorite stories of the year. Most of them had an investigative bent. Now, it’s my turn.
This piece -- part of my Prisons & Public Health news blog -- ran on Newsdesk.org as part of my ongoing exploration of the connection between prisoner reentry, public health and public safety.
By Kelley Weiss
California’s second most expensive health and human services program, Supplemental Security Income, or SSI, was designed to help the elderly and disabled afford basic necessities. But for many older Californians it's not meeting that goal.
In the first of our two-part series, Senior Insecurity, we’ll look at how the deepest state budget cuts to SSI in a decade have impacted older disabled Californians. A growing number of them can’t afford enough food or are living on the streets.
By Kelley Weiss
California sends out about three billion dollars a year to the disabled and elderly so they can buy food and afford housing. But in the second part of our series, Senior Insecurity, Capital Public Radio found there's little oversight of this program.
Even though Supplemental Security Income - or SSI - is California's second most expensive health and human services program, the state doesn't track whether it's enough to live on or how people spend their money.
I started listing my favorite stories of the past year, in no particular order, on Dec. 21. Here is the rest of the list.
“At VA Hospital, A Rogue Cancer Unit,” Walt Bogdanich, The New York Times
