By Dr. David Satcher Race has long been a key determinant of public health in this country, and as U.S. Surgeon General under President Bill Clinton, I saw those disparities – and worse outcomes for Black Americans – every day. In 1998, I released the first Surgeon General’s report on “Tobacco Use Among U.S. Racial/Ethnic Minority Groups,”…
Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp is doubling the staffing help that the state is sending to hospitals grappling with shortages of nurses, respiratory therapists and other workers amid the latest COVID-19 surge. The staffing help expands the supply of temporary workers that the state is providing from 1,300 to 2,800, Kemp told a news conference Monday….
Georgia has a lot of great things going for it, including a vibrant economy. One thing that isn’t going very well is health care, according to a new GHN Commentary. Poverty, health disparities, physician shortages and a high level of uninsured people are some of the factors cited by Jack Bernard and Dr. Doug Skelton….
Across Georgia on Wednesday, dozens of hospitals were reporting severe ER crowding and various forms of “diversion ” — sending patients elsewhere due to capacity problems. The Delta variant of COVID-19, sweeping through the state, is rapidly increasing case numbers and hospitalizations. But exacerbating the current patient crunch is the ever-worsening shortage of health care…
Editor’s note: An earlier version of this article reflected figures from another news organization that have since been revised. As the Delta variant drives a relentless COVID-19 surge, Georgia’s vaccination rate has picked up steam. A Washington Post analysis, based on CDC data, reported Tuesday that the state’s rate of new doses administered climbed 26…
Wearing COVID-19 masks helped prevent people on an airliner from getting monkeypox when they flew with a traveler who turned out to have the disease, a CDC official says. The 43 people in Georgia who were being monitored in July for monkeypox have passed through the 21-day period for potential infection, and there were no…
Editor’s Note: GHN is reprinting this 2019 article as a tribute to its author, Judi Kanne, an Atlanta freelance journalist and nurse who died recently. 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…
To describe the current COVID surge, hospital leaders in South Georgia are using strong words, such as ‘‘scary,’’ ‘‘fear’’ and “overwhelmed.’’ The state’s COVID-19 map shows most of the hottest spots for the latest case surge are in the southern part of Georgia. And some hospital officials in the region say the impact is worse…
Georgia is second to last among states in conducting comprehensive inspections of its nursing homes, according to a federal report. More than 90 percent of Georgia nursing homes had gone without a thorough inspection for at least 16 months as of May 31, the report found. Federal health agencies require these “standard surveys’’ to be…
With searing heat and wildfires in Western states, and major flooding in China and Germany, climate change has become a front-of-mind concern for many. But the changing climate is also degrading air quality in the U.S. and harming health, say June Deen and Dr. Anne Mellinger-Birdsong in a new GHN Commentary. Referring to an air pollution report,…