Takeaways: The Kansas budget would include the largest single-year investment in child care under the plan set out by Gov. Laura Kelly on Thursday The governor’s recommendations are just one step in the lengthy process of setting a final budget. Proposals to expand Medicaid and invest more in special education and her tax-cut plans draw […]
Health
The Wichita Beacon provides the latest trustworthy health care news stories for the Wichita, Kansas community.
Posted inHealth, How To
Where to go in Wichita if you fall in the Medicaid gap
Kansas remains one of 10 states that haven’t expanded Medicaid, leaving 40,000-plus people in the state without government health insurance — or subsidies for private coverage. Democratic Gov. Laura Kelly still wants the Legislature to expand that coverage — and so do more than two-thirds of Kansans. But Republican leaders in Topeka appear unlikely to […]
Posted inHealth
Kansas physicians ditch rules treating white people’s kidney disease more seriously
Takeaways Kidney disease was the 10th leading cause of death in Kansas for 2021. The state saw 550 deaths and recorded the 16th worst death rate in the country. Nationally, Black and Hispanic residents accounted for a significantly higher number of those deaths than the white majority. Black people make up about 13% of the […]
Posted inEconomics, Health
Years of nurse short-staffing culminate in second strike in six months at two Ascension hospitals
After a monthslong struggle against cost-cutting measures, nurses at two Ascension Via Christi hospitals in Wichita went on strike for the second time in six months on Dec. 6 as negotiations dragged between the union and the state’s largest health care provider. Ascension Via Christi’s St. Francis and St. Joseph hospitals are dealing with ongoing […]
Posted inHealth, Kansas State Government
Kansas foster kids need mental health care, but trying to add more is expensive
Takeaways: Kansas foster kids get too little behavioral and mental health treatment, audits find, but expanding those services can prove so costly that it slows expansion of those programs. Foster kids got mental and behavioral health treatment just 70% of the time in 2022, a lawsuit settlement found. That’s well below the 85% court-mandated requirement. […]
Posted inData, Health
Syphilis rates climbed by over 2,000% in Sedgwick County in the last decade
For the first dozen-plus years of this century, syphilis was a rarity in Sedgwick County. Fewer than one of every 100,000 residents had the sexually transmitted disease. But in the last decade — mirroring a national trend made worse by the isolation and shifting behaviors spurred by the COVID-19 pandemic — the rate has skyrocketed […]
Posted inKansas State Government
A 15-year-old’s suicide while in Kansas foster care came amid a shortfall in mental health care
Takeaways: A 15-year-old took his own life in October while in the care of a private Kansas foster care agency. That agency, KVC Kansas, fell short of court-mandated benchmarks for getting mental health treatment for children in its care. Yet KVC actually comes closer to hitting the mark than other agencies hired by the state […]
Posted inHealth, Kansas State Government
Kansas judge blocks 24-hour waiting period for women seeking abortions
A Kansas judge has temporarily blocked several of the state’s longstanding abortion restrictions, including a 24-hour waiting period that providers say has resulted in hundreds of women being denied abortions. In an order released Monday, Johnson County District Judge K. Christopher Jayaram wrote that the restrictions “(appear) to be a thinly-veiled effort to stigmatize the […]
Posted inData, Health, Kansas State Government
Red tape and income limits have booted 82,000 Kansans off Medicaid since May. How can they get back on?
Robyn Adams struggled to support her husband and teenage daughter on $16,000 a year during the pandemic. Then the pandemic ended and her family lost its Medicaid coverage. “We went into panic,” she said. The family relied on a temporary expansion of coverage authorized by the federal government during the pandemic to weather the bills […]
Posted inHealth
Psychologist works with Wichita Catholic Diocese to fight stigma around suicide
When Jessica Provines left the Catholic Church, she was an idealistic 18-year-old disillusioned with an institution that she saw as rigid, uncompromising and detached from the needs of the suffering. Twenty-six years later, Provines finds the Wichita Catholic Diocese a willing partner, ready to talk candidly about suicide to save lives. She’s worked her way […]