Investor payouts put Sterigenics in tenuous financial position as pressure mounts

By Brian Eason, AJC Editor’s note: This article is reprinted with permission of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. WebMD and Georgia Health News broke the story in July 2019 of the potential dangers of cancer-causing ethylene oxide in three census tracts in metro Atlanta. Years before the neighbors of a medical sterilization plant near Smyrna knew that the…

Report urges Medicaid expansion to combat Georgia’s HIV crisis

Expanding Medicaid would give coverage to thousands of uninsured HIV patients in Georgia and provide millions of dollars of additional services for people infected with the virus, a recently released study says. The expansion of Medicaid, as outlined in the Affordable Care Act, has been adopted in 38 states, but not in Georgia. Republican elected…

No break from Covid: Metro Atlanta medical officials urge vaccinations

A 70-year-old man recently entered a metro Atlanta hospital after a fall. He subsequently tested positive for Covid, this is why it is import for concierge covid testing for those who have covid symptoms.. So did his daughter, who drove him to the hospital. Eight other family members also tested positive. Branstetter Three of the…

How a powerful company persuaded Georgia to let it bury toxic waste in groundwater

By Max Blau ProPublica is a nonprofit newsroom that investigates abuses of power.  Max Blau is an Atlanta-based ProPublica reporter who previously worked in partnership with Georgia Health News on a series of articles on coal ash. For the past several years, Georgia Power has gone to great lengths to skirt the federal rule requiring…

Covid vaccination rates among young children lag in Georgia, South

By Rachana Pradhan, Hannah Recht and Andy Miller Two months after Pfizer’s Covid vaccine was authorized for children ages 5 to 11, just 27% have received at least one shot, according to Jan. 12 CDC data. Only 18%, or 5 million kids, have both doses, Kaiser Health News reported. In Georgia, as well as other Southern states, the percentages…

‘Incidental’ cases, shortages of staff make Covid-19’s new act tough for hospitals

By Lauren Weber, Phil Galewitz and Andy Miller The Cleveland Clinic in Weston, Florida, on Jan. 11 was treating 80 Covid-19 patients — a tenfold increase since late December. Nearly half were admitted for other medical reasons. The surge driven by the extremely infectious Omicron variant helped push the South Florida hospital with 206 licensed…

State running ‘hotel’ for some vulnerable Covid patients in metro area

As the latest Covid surge intensifies, state Public Health officials are running an “isolation hotel’’ for virus patients who are homeless or in living situations where disease spread is more likely. State health officials said Wednesday that the metro Atlanta facility, which was not identified, has capacity for 50 people, along with additional space in…

Covid hospitalizations soar in Atlanta area; Northside wins a round in court vs. Anthem

Major happenings in health care didn’t cease over the holidays. The news, in fact, exploded – in both familiar and surprising directions, including an unusual twist in the Northside Hospital vs. Anthem contract dispute. It started, of course, with the latest on the Covid-19 pandemic. The state last week reported daily totals of new Covid…

The Top 10 Georgia health care stories of 2021

Close to 20,000 new Covid cases (including positives from antigen tests) were reported in Georgia on the last Wednesday of 2021, as new daily state records were being set. On the state virus map, metro Atlanta was covered by a deep, dangerous red color, signifying high rates of infection. People were scrambling to get Covid…

The ripple effect when rural hospitals drop birthing services

This is Part 3 of a Special Report Madelaine Austin is having her first baby, and had planned to give birth at Stephens County Hospital in northeast Georgia, just five minutes from her home. But in the middle of her pregnancy, she was forced to change OB/GYNs and the facility where she would deliver her…