This story is jointly reported by Brenda Goodman of WebMD and Andy Miller of Georgia Health News. Ann Singley was trying to muscle her lawnmower out of a ditch in front of her home in Covington when she felt a tug in her breast. It was a hard lump, and in the days after she…
A Georgia physician who visited migrant border facilities last month says she was alarmed by the signs of children’s stress there. Dr. Sally Goza of Fayetteville, president-elect of the American Academy of Pediatrics, said Monday that the visit by herself and other pediatricians underscored the organization’s position that the Border Patrol facilities are not a…
When Hurricane Maria struck Puerto Rico in September 2017, Emory physician Dr. Carla Haack had no way of knowing whether her parents were alive or dead. Their home was in Cidra, a town in the central part of the island, where phone service was knocked out and roads were blocked by fallen trees and other…
State regulators have a backlog of about 200 complaints against nursing homes that need investigation, officials say. A high number of job vacancies for nurse surveyors is a major cause of the complaint backlog, according to the state Department of Community Health. The agency said the unaddressed nursing home complaints were not “immediate jeopardy’’ problems,…
Singing isn’t new for Mike Shortal, who is 81 and lives in Sandy Springs. He loves music, and says being a member of a choir has long been one of the joys of his life. “I became an engineer because I knew I couldn’t make a career out of music, but I’ve always tried be…
A new study says Medicaid expansion has helped reduce states’ numbers of uninsured women of childbearing age – and cut their infant and maternal mortality rates. States that expanded Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act saw a 50 percent greater reduction in infant mortality than non-expansion states, according to the report from the Georgetown Center for…
By Chris Herbert On a street in downtown Athens, across from an arthouse movie theater and beside a craft brewery, sits an off-white building with a large statue of a bulldog near the entrance. This structure houses a local branch of Biotest Plasma Center, a national company that collects plasma from people’s blood. Plasma, when…
Tresa Haywood, 50, has had a complicated medical history in recent years. She was diagnosed with Hashimoto’s disease, an autoimmune disorder, in 2000. Two years later came a diagnosis of diabetes, followed by diagnoses of hypoxia – low oxygen in the tissue – irritable bowel syndrome and other conditions in 2004. She was even believed…
By Chris Herbert For the past three years, Amy Haney has administered a private Facebook group for parents in Georgia who seek more information about vaccines. Haney, a metro Atlanta resident and mother of four, founded the group in February 2016 after a policy change required one of her children to turn in a standardized shot…
In a whirlwind of activity on health care bills, the General Assembly on Friday approved substantial changes to the state’s certificate-of-need system and the renewal of a Medicaid funding mechanism. The CON provisions in House Bill 186 will allow Cancer Treatment Centers of America a pathway to expand the capacity of its Newnan facility and…