Rocha Garcia’s anxiety touched on a rarely discussed reality of life in San Antonio: Your health, as well as your quality of life and opportunities, are powerfully influenced by where you live.
Mental Health & Trauma
Maine lawmakers and health officials realized easy access to prescription opioids was creating dependency issues and clamped down, but did not anticipate how well the illegal drug market would fill the void.
Nikole Powell’s father developed an opioid use disorder after a work injury, a dependence that traumatized his family and eventually led to his incarceration and death. His daughter is trying to break the cycle.
Twenty years after Purdue Pharma introduced its pain medication, OxyContin, Maine lawmakers passed a bill that significantly stemmed the flow of pain pills into the state.
A Houston Chronicle investigation found that at no point since 2013 did any Texas school district have the nationally or state recommended student-to-provider ratios in four positions that are key to providing mental health support for children — nurses, counselors, case workers and psychologists.
There are only eight kids in this class at Linda Tutt Learning Center, but the chaos erupting throughout the room and spilling into the hallway would set any teacher on edge.
Like many patients prescribed opioids for chronic pain, Todd Papianou, a high school teacher from Rumford, knows the thin line between life-saving and life-destroying medication.
Lacking resources, she thought her mentally ill son would be safer in jail. Then he was beaten to death.
With the passage of the Mental Health Parity Act, insurers are required to provide equal coverage for behavioral health care.
But at no point since 2013 did any Texas school district have the professionally recommended student supervisor ratios for counselors, nurses, psychologist and social workers at the same time, a Houston Chronicle investigation found.