Correction: This story originally stated the wrong year Trust Women was founded. It was founded in 2009 and the clinic opened in 2013. In the three weeks since internal conflicts abruptly paused services at Wichita’s largest abortion provider, the two other places in the city providing abortion have scrambled to pick up the slack. One […]
Health
The Wichita Beacon provides the latest trustworthy health care news stories for the Wichita, Kansas community.
Posted inHealth
Bird flu has hit cows in Kansas and sparked precautions in Missouri. Here’s what that means for you
Don’t drink raw milk. It’s one piece of public health advice almost every doctor, scientist and public health official can get behind. Especially as bird flu jumps from chickens to cows to a handful of farmworkers. Yet on the north side of Excelsior Springs, Be Whole Again Farm hasn’t noticed the public health guidance having […]
Posted inState Government
Insurance covers mammograms, but Kansas patients are often on the hook for costly follow-up screenings
Delaying a diagnostic mammogram carries potentially deadly risks. Diagnostic mammograms, MRIs, sonograms and other types of specialized breast imaging can help detect breast cancer when it’s most treatable. Stage 1 breast cancer has an almost 100% survival rate. That’s why yearly mammogram testing is free for women over 40. But when doctors find something that […]
Posted inHealth
Missouri and Kansas families will be getting money for kids’ summer meals — eventually
Summer may be half over by the time Kansas families get extra food aid meant to see them through long hot days when school breakfasts and lunches disappear. For Missouri families, the aid may not arrive until a new school year is well underway. But that still beats the 13 states where families won’t be […]
Posted inKansas State Government
Kansas lawmakers are temporarily limiting a program that increases mental health services
Targeted federal tax dollars turbocharged Sedgwick County’s COMCARE mental health clinic by helping it give patients more behavioral health treatment and add sorely needed staff. COMCARE cut its staff vacancy rate from around 50% years ago down to 13%, thanks in part to a federal program. Other community mental health centers have expanded their services […]
Posted inHealth
Doctors say new Kansas law asking women why they’re getting an abortion is unconstitutional
Abortion providers are challenging a new Kansas law that will soon compel women to tell their doctors — and the state health department — their top reason for seeking an abortion. They say the law, set to take effect July 1, is unconstitutional and violates patient privacy. “Conversations that happen in the exam room are private,” […]
Posted inKansas State Government
Kansas budget approves millions for mental health workforce development
Finding mental health professionals in Kansas is hard. Crisis teams that talk down suicidal Wichitans struggle to fill evening shifts and mental health hospitals that can rescue someone from a crisis have open beds they can’t use because they don’t have enough staff. States across the country can’t hire enough workers for critical mental health […]
Posted inHealth, Kansas State Government
Mobile mental health squads in high demand in Wichita
Takeaways: For generations, the job of talking somebody down from a psychotic episode in Wichita usually fell to whatever police officers fielded the call for help. That meant somebody with a gun and handcuffs was sent to deal with everything from a depressive episode to erratic behavior to paranoid delusions. Last year, city and county […]
Posted inEconomics, Health, Housing
Kansas is injecting $205 million into a biomedical campus. How it changes downtown Wichita
It is closing in on a weekday lunch hour with few signs of life on an April morning at the southeast corner of Broadway Avenue and East William Street. On the corner, a parking lot. To the west, the distinctive Depression-era Petroleum Building sits empty. To the south and east, toward the Intrust Bank Arena, […]
Posted inEconomics, Health
Wichita’s biomedical campus aims to build tech and variety into health care training
A $300 million project about to be built downtown will give Wichita State University a unique opportunity to give students the most modern training possible in a health care world that is undergoing “tectonic” changes, says Gregory Hand, WSU dean of the College of Health Professions. As health care becomes more about teamwork among doctors, […]