Mental health data show ‘unsustainable’ emergency department burden

October 4, 2022 Vera

This article was supported by a grant from the Fund for Investigative Journalism and co-published with WRAL-TV.

By Taylor Knopf

A 9-year-old girl with mental health issues spent at least four months this spring living in a Novant Health emergency room in Wilmington: sleeping, eating, doing school work. During that time, emergency department staff searched for an available mental health facility that could take a child so young.

“I have kids that have been in our hospital for three, four or five months waiting for an appropriate living situation,” said Paula Bird, vice president of behavioral health services at Novant Health, the Winston-Salem-based hospital network that operates Novant Health New Hanover Regional Medical Center.

She explained that many of these long stays occur when a county department of social services is involved. In some cases, overwhelmed parents bring their child to the ER and leave, saying they can’t take the child back home without some kind of treatment.

The Wilmington case, which was described by Bird, is not unique. Hospital officials across the state say there are children in mental health distress living in their emergency departments. Atrium Health has seen a 65 percent increase in emergency department patients needing psychiatric care, according to leaders at the Charlotte-based hospital group. For children in need of psychiatric care, the demand tripled over the course of the pandemic.

“We’ve seen since the beginning of 2022 that our numbers have just stayed high consistently and that’s not typical,” Wayne Sparks, medical director of Atrium Health Behavioral Health Services, said in May. “We’ll have surges, but they typically will be a week or two and then go back down. But this has been sustained now for the last five months.”

Emergency department data from hospitals across North Carolina show an elevated rate of pediatric patient visits throughout most of the pandemic compared to previous years, mirroring national trends. Young people have experienced higher levels of depression, with 44 percent of U.S. high school students in 2021 reporting persistent feelings of sadness or hopelessness.

Kids who harm themselves or express suicidal thoughts often land in the emergency department. From there, it’s common for emergency department staff to initiate an involuntary commitment — a process that calls for sending patients to one of the state’s few psychiatric hospital beds.

Health experts are calling the youth mental health crisis the latest wave of

What is it, and how does it affect mental health?

September 30, 2022 Vera

Over the last several decades, gender roles have evolved and changed to reflect shifting societal norms. Yet, despite these changes, unpaid household labor disparities still exist between partnered men and women worldwide. In this Special Feature, we take an in-depth look at how this unequal division of unpaid work affects women’s mental health and relationships. We also spoke with three experts to gain insight into this global issue.

woman loading washing machine — Women continue to shoulder the majority of unremunerated tasks. What does this mean for their mental health? Image credit: Juana Mari Moya/Getty Images.

Although gender roles are less rigid than they were decades ago, data suggest that, in heterosexual relationships, the burden of unpaid work still falls on women — even in cohabitating relationships where both partners are employed.

For example, 2021 US Bureau of Labor Statistics data shows that both spouses were employed in 46.8% of married couple families. Yet statistics also indicate that 59% of women report doing more household work than their partners.

However, other data suggest that since the mid-1970s, the amount of time men spend on household tasks has doubled. For instance, in 1976, men spent around 6 hours a week on household duties. In 2005, that number increased to around 12.5 hours per week.

But, in those same years, women still spent more time completing unpaid household labor — specifically, around 26 hours per week in 1976 and around 16.5 hours per week in 2005.

Still, the impact unpaid labor inequities may have on women’s mental health is often overlooked.

To examine this further, scientists from the University of Melbourne, Melbourne, VIC, Australia, investigated the relationship between unpaid labor and mental health among employed adults.

Their findings, published in The Lancet Public Health, suggest a negative association between unpaid labor and mental health for employed women. However, the researchers did not find the same associations for working men.

To conduct the research, the scientists reviewed 19 studies with 70,310 total participants from across the globe. Qualifying studies were peer-reviewed and measured the amount of unpaid labor among employed adults. They also outlined associations between this type of work and self-reported mental health concerns, including depression and psychological distress.

After examining the research, the study authors found that women reported taking on more unpaid work regardless of geographical location and time setting. Moreover, this added burden was associated with poorer mental health in

Amazon will get One particular Professional medical in its latest health care endeavor : NPR

September 29, 2022 Vera

Amazon claimed it will obtain the main treatment group One particular Clinical for $3.9 billion.

Michael Sohn/AP

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Michael Sohn/AP

Amazon claimed it will obtain the primary treatment business Just one Health-related for $3.9 billion.

Michael Sohn/AP

Amazon ideas to purchase the main treatment corporation A single Medical in a almost $4 billion offer, introducing to the expanding record of the tech giant’s acquisitions and attempts to develop its attain in the well being care marketplace.

“We believe health and fitness treatment is high on the checklist of activities that need to have reinvention,” Neil Lindsay, senior vice president of Amazon Health Companies, explained in a assertion final week.

A person Health-related is a membership-based mostly main care follow with virtually 200 locations throughout the place that also offers virtual expert services. The firm had about 767,000 member individuals as of May perhaps.

“There is an enormous option to make the well being care knowledge much more accessible, affordable, and even pleasurable for clients, providers, and payers,” Amir Dan Rubin, One Medical’s CEO, explained in a statement.

The offer, which regulators and A single Medical’s shareholders even now need to have to approve, marks Amazon’s most significant health care acquisition nonetheless. But Amazon’s ambitions in well being treatment go back again many years.

Amazon by now has a foothold in wellbeing care. One particular Professional medical provides it a larger physical presence

Amazon’s acquisition of One Healthcare has some similarities to its buy of Full Food items in 2017.

“In excess of the previous couple a long time, Amazon has been in the same way striving to get into health treatment mostly with electronic interactions,” Dr. Aaron Neinstein, a electronic wellness professional who potential customers electronic overall health records implementation at the University of California, San Francisco, advised NPR.

“I imagine this signifies their similar need as Entire Foods to have a actual physical spot where by they can have a health and fitness care interaction with their patients or customers which is obtainable in most big American metropolitan areas,” Neinstein said.

This is only the latest of the firm’s health treatment ventures.

How to protect your privacy when using mental health care apps

Amazon acquired the on the web pharmacy business PillPack for $753 million in 2018 and introduced Amazon Pharmacy in 2020 as a prescription and delivery assistance.

The business partnered with JPMorgan Chase and Berkshire Hathaway to sort Haven — a nonprofit wellness treatment business

Large Scientific studies Check Performance of Popular Diabetic issues Meds | Overall health & Health and fitness

September 26, 2022 Vera

THURSDAY, Sept. 22, 2022 (HealthDay Information) — Two prevalent diabetes drugs seem to be to outperform two other individuals when it arrives to controlling blood sugar degrees, a large U.S. trial has found.

The demo of much more than 5,000 individuals with type 2 diabetic issues discovered that two injection medications — a very long-acting insulin and liraglutide (Victoza) — generally labored better than two oral medication in keeping blood sugar concentrations in examine.

Over 5 decades, people using possibly injection treatment method used additional time with their blood sugar in the advised assortment — an regular of 6 extra months.

Continue to, most analyze people ended up not able to meet up with that aim for the long haul. Specialists reported it underscores how complicated that task is for persons with diabetic issues.

“In the end, the treatment combinations did not keep ideal A1C stages in many clients for the long-phrase management of sort 2 diabetic issues,” explained researcher Dr. Henry Burch of the U.S. National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases (NIDDK).

A1C is a evaluate of a person’s ordinary blood sugar stage above the past a few months. When folks have diabetes, the aim is to preserve A1C beneath 7%.

In the demo, 71% of patients could not fulfill that goal across the 5-yr adhere to-up.

Much more than 37 million People in america have diabetes, the extensive the greater part of whom have form 2, according to the NIDDK. In that variety of the sickness, the human body loses its means to correctly use insulin, a hormone that shuttles sugars from foods into human body cells to be applied for electricity.

As a consequence, sugar builds up in the bloodstream, which can injury blood vessels and nerves about time. Numerous folks with diabetic issues create problems these types of as coronary heart sickness, kidney failure, nerve problems in the feet and legs, and perhaps blinding eye illness.

Managing blood sugar is vital to decreasing those people pitfalls. To do that, most individuals with variety 2 diabetic issues take the oral drug metformin, together with eating plan improvements and work out.

The new conclusions — released Sept. 22 in the New England Journal of Drugs — appear from a demo introduced virtually a decade in the past and funded by the NIDDK. The target was to identify which diabetes medications, when added to

Med Schools Are Struggling to Overcome Racism in Health Care

September 22, 2022 Vera

Derrick Morton was skeptical about working for Kaiser Permanente’s Bernard J. Tyson School of Medicine. The Pasadena, Calif., school hadn’t yet opened to students when he was offered a job in early 2020, and it felt risky to work for such a new institution. But Morton, who is Black, was eventually sold by the medical school’s mission: to train doctors with a strong focus on diversity, equity, and inclusion and to dismantle health disparities.

After a short time as an assistant professor of biomedical science, however, Morton says it became clear that the reality didn’t live up to his “great expectations.” In a lawsuit filed Aug. 22, Morton alleges that Kaiser’s medical school discriminates against Black faculty, fostering a culture of “anti-Black animus” that is “so pervasive and chilling that [Morton] and his Black colleagues could not associate with each other or with Black students for fear of being blacklisted and rendered professionally non-viable.”

At least a dozen times between October 2020 and July 2021, Morton alleges that he complained to supervisors that Black employees were being discriminated against and treated unfairly, including through demotions, discipline, and efforts to “silence” those who spoke out. Morton claims that he personally experienced similar issues—including being appointed to a diversity, equity, and inclusion advisory committee that, he says, was stripped of authority and effectively made secondary to an outside consultant. Morton claims that the toxic work environment at Kaiser caused him to develop panic attacks and insomnia, and to seek out therapy for the first time in his life.

A spokesperson for the medical school said they were “surprised” by Morton’s complaint and “strongly disagree with the allegations and characterization of events” within it, but declined to provide further comment on the lawsuit because litigation is ongoing.

The spokesperson stressed that “addressing equity, inclusion, and diversity in medical education and health care is one of our primary objectives at the Kaiser Permanente Bernard J. Tyson School of Medicine.” They noted that the school recruits a diverse body of students and faculty; that anti-racism is woven throughout its curriculum; and that Black faculty members hold many leadership and committee positions at the school.

Morton isn’t the first ex-faculty member to sue Kaiser’s medical school. Last year, former instructor Dr. Aysha Khoury filed a complaint against the school, alleging that she’d been suspended and ultimately terminated—without warning or a satisfying explanation—after leading a

Health care college university student will get white coat from more mature brother in touching ceremony

September 19, 2022 Vera

For any aspiring health practitioner, the white coat ceremony is a special milestone, the minute you obtain and get to use a doctor’s white coat and formally start your medical scientific studies.

It can be a rite of passage Maria Cielito Robles would not shortly ignore and one that was more distinctive for her and her spouse and children.

Robles, a scholar at Michigan Point out University’s Faculty of Human Medication, been given her white coat on Aug. 20 at DeVos Efficiency Hall in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Her more mature brother, Carlito Robles, a health practitioner assistant, was there to “coat” her — or give her her white coat — in man or woman.

“These a special second to be coated by my large brother for my @MSUMD white coat ceremony — we’ve appear a extensive way from living in a kubo (shack) in the Philippines #AmericanDream,” Robles tweeted the subsequent working day.

Her tweet has considering that long gone viral, accumulating additional than 6,000 likes.

Beneath her tweet, Robles integrated a image of herself and her brother from 2002 in their former residence in Malolos, in the province of Bulacan, alongside a photograph of the two of them onstage at her white coat ceremony.

PHOTO: A young Maria Cielito Robles with her brother Carlito Robles at home in the Philippines. Maria Cielito Robles immigrated to the U.S. when she was 8 years old.

Courtesy of Maria Cielito Robles

A youthful Maria Cielito Robles with her brother Carlito Robles at house in the Philippines. Maria Cielito Robles immigrated to the U.S. when she was 8 a long time aged.

PHOTO: Maria Cielito Robles, a medical school student, chose her older brother, Carlito Robles, to give her her white coat. The white coat ceremony for medical school students marks the beginning of the journey to becoming doctors.

Courtesy of Maria Cielito Robles

Maria Cielito Robles, a health care faculty scholar, chose her more mature brother, Carlito Robles, to give her her white coat. The white coat ceremony for health-related school learners marks the starting of the journey to turning out to be physicians.

“At my college, you can request for a special coater so it really is a family members member or another person you have a close romantic relationship with who has a doctorate or terminal diploma in health and fitness treatment and so due to the fact he’s a PA, I imagined it would be definitely particular to have him coat me, especially mainly because we have experienced a very near relationship,” Robles, 28, instructed “Great Early morning The us.”

“I was dwelling with him when he was in his very last 12 months of PA faculty and I was making use of to healthcare university so I really feel like we’ve form of been