For Wil Franklin, chief executive of KC CARE Health Clinic, Tuesday began with a blizzard of texts and emails. A sweeping plan to freeze federal grants and loans affected $5 million that his community safety-net clinic relies on. The online portal that community health clinics across the country use to access federal money was suddenly […]
Health
Posted inKansas
Is this bill the key to reducing gun suicides in Kansas and Missouri?
Donna Nathan loved two-stepping and The Beatles. The radio was always on at her house. That love of music easily translated to dancing in parades. Nathan and her daughter, Katrina Brees, even worked together at a studio making sculptures for Mardi Gras parades. “She was the type of person that would find some sick animal […]
Posted inState Government
Child hunger rose 6%, and it isn’t clear what Kansas lawmakers will do
From 2021 to 2022, the number of Kansas children who didn’t know where their next meal would come from grew by 37,000. The rise in food insecurity shows up at food banks across the state. Aundrea Walker, the executive director of Just Food, said 30% of the people it serves are under 18 years old. […]
Posted inHealth
Weathered COVID before? Scientists say every new infection puts you at risk of getting long COVID
Salam Kabbani wears a smile, and many of her sentences trail into laughter. That tends to mask the fact that she got COVID-19 three years ago — and never got better. The 34-year-old Overland Park pharmacist is one of 17 million Americans battling long COVID, an amorphous constellation of symptoms that scientists are only beginning […]
Posted inHealth
Kansas City LGBTQ community vows to ‘fight like hell’ amid mental health and rights worries after Trump win
Election night at BlaqOut in Kansas City was always going to double as a launch party for the organization’s fight for policy and attitude changes toward the Black LGBTQ+ community. As vote results came in, a particular sense of urgency followed. “We have to continue to organize beyond Election Day,” said D. Rashaan Gilmore, the […]
Posted inLabor
Striking Textron Aviation in Wichita workers lose health insurance
Dreena Reed has Medicare coverage, so she wasn’t personally affected when Textron Aviation cut off striking workers’ health insurance. But she’s worried about her daughter’s family. Her son-in-law is also on strike, and the company-sponsored health insurance covers him, Reed’s daughter and their kids. “That just goes to show that they’re not caring about their […]
Posted inHealth
Loss of a Kansas City, Kansas, maternity ward reflects a ‘troubling trend’
This summer, Providence Medical Center in Wyandotte County joined the growing list of community hospitals that no longer deliver babies. The for-profit hospital in a residential corner of northwest Kansas City, Kansas, said a decade of declining birth numbers prompted its decision to shutter its labor and delivery department at the end of June. Since […]
Posted inHealth
An Overland Park pharmacist quit the drug insurance game. He says it could save you money
Nick Romo spent a decade as a pharmacist under the rule of insurance companies and their middlemen. Too often, customers couldn’t get the drugs their doctors prescribed or ran into prices so high they walked away empty-handed. So two years ago, he opened Pharmington Drugs in south Overland Park in rebellion against it all. “I […]
Posted inHealth
Missouri and Kansas keep losing pharmacies, and a key part of health care
Less than two years ago, neighbors near Brush Creek Boulevard and Troost Avenue had choices when they needed to pick up a prescription — or a carton of milk. A CVS pharmacy stood on the northeast corner of their intersection. Its retail rival, Walgreens, was just a block south at Troost and Emanuel Cleaver II […]
Posted inHealth
Kansas City pharmacists’ walkout a year ago highlighted industry troubles. The problems haven’t gone away
Kansas City pharmacists walked off the job last September to protest working conditions and brought widespread attention to the troubled retail pharmacy business. The industry is battling economic pressures, changed buying habits and labor shortages.