The Piedmont Healthcare system will require doctors, hospital leaders and new employees to get vaccinated for COVID-19 by Sept. 1, the Atlanta-based nonprofit organization said Monday. Other employees at Piedmont facilities will be required to get COVID shots “in the near future,’’ Piedmont said in a statement. “It’s important to consider that vaccination is a…
There’s no real profile for the victims. They don’t appear to fit into any particular economic, racial or ethnic grouping. The rising numbers of opioid overdoses “seem to hit everyone,’’ says Dr. Dan McCollum, an emergency medicine physician at Augusta University Medical Center. “It hits all economic strata.’’ Even age is no longer the factor it…
By Brenda Goodman and Andy Miller Part Three of a series Ideally, anyone should be able to look at this map we created and learn what percentage of health care workers at their local hospitals have not yet been vaccinated against COVID-19. That may not be possible, however, because some hospitals say the data are incorrect. The…
By Andy Miller and Brenda Goodman Second in a series Houston Healthcare did the typical things to promote COVID-19 vaccination among its hospital workers, including stressing the importance and safety of getting a shot. But the Warner Robins-based system’s successful vaccine effort had a personal dimension as well. The deaths of three beloved staff members…
By Brenda Goodman and Andy Miller Brenda Goodman is a senior news writer for WebMD. Andy Miller is editor and CEO of Georgia Health News. This is the first of a series. Tim Oswalt had been in a Fort Worth, Texas, hospital for over a month, receiving treatment for a grapefruit-sized tumor in his chest…
Natural gas is a popular fuel in our state. Besides heating many buildings, it’s used in home appliances, such as stoves. But a Georgia physician writes in a new GHN Commentary that it can harm human health. Fossil fuels, including natural gas, are accelerating climate change, says Dr. Linda Walden, a Cairo physician. She adds…
By Dr. Linda Walden Here in the Southeast, natural gas is a fossil fuel that provides electricity for our homes and business. We use it daily to heat our homes in the winter, power our air conditioners in the summer and cook our food. In fact, natural gas accounts for 46 percent of our electricity…
Doctors in Georgia and other Southern states have seen since April an unusual surge of a common respiratory virus that affects children and older adults. The spike in cases of respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) at this time of year is linked, at least in part, to children and others no longer widely wearing masks or…
An outbreak of COVID-19 at an immigrant detention center is fueling a spike in cases in a west Georgia county. Stewart Detention Center, in the town of Lumpkin, has 47 inmates currently under isolation or monitoring for COVID, according to a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) website. State data show Stewart County has had…
The term “social determinants of health’’ refers to conditions under which people live and work that can affect their health risks and outcomes. These non-medical factors, positive and negative, can include safe housing and transportation; discrimination and violence; education; access to nutritious foods and physical activity; and pollution in air and water. Negative conditions can…