EL PASO, Texas — Men lined up outside the Corner of Hope, a homeless resource center, eyeing free supplies on plastic shelves inside a white van. Some wanted bags with toiletries or condoms, but others took kits that help them safely use drugs or naloxone, an opioid overdose reversal medicine. Gilbert Shepherd, an outreach worker […]
A bipartisan U.S. Senate agreement negotiated after high-profile mass shootings in Texas, New York, and Oklahoma lacks gun access restrictions that advocates say are needed to prevent such attacks. But the deal’s focus on mental health has raised hopes — and doubts — that it will help reduce gun suicides, particularly in rural Western states […]
MEXICO, Mo. — When the new corporate owners of two rural hospitals suddenly announced they would stop admitting patients one Friday in March, Kayla Schudel, a nurse, stood resolute in the nearly empty lobby of Audrain Community Hospital: “You’ll be seen; the ER is open.” The hospital — with 40 beds and five clinics — […]
When Dr. Roy Guerrero, a pediatrician in Uvalde, Texas, testified before a U.S. House committee Wednesday about gun violence, he told lawmakers about the horror of seeing the bodies of two of the 19 children killed in the Robb Elementary massacre. They were so pulverized, he said, that they could be identified only by their […]
Katie Coleman stood face-to-face with a choice no job seeker should ever have to make. She could tell her prospective employer she had stage 4 kidney cancer, the most life-threatening stage of all. Or she could stay mum. She knew she risked losing any shot at the job by being honest about her diagnosis — […]
Isela Perez entered the custody of Georgia’s child welfare system at age 10. It happened after her father was deported and her mother left her and her brother alone in their home for two weeks, she said. Perez estimates she moved more than 20 times among group homes, mental health facilities, and foster families. “A […]
Mariel needed a new gastroenterologist. Having just moved back to San Antonio, the 30-something searched for a doctor to manage her Crohn’s disease, an inflammatory bowel condition that is successfully managed with medications and lifelong monitoring — including regular colonoscopies. Mariel booked an appointment and learned she would be on the hook for a $1,100 […]
KHN correspondent Aneri Pattani discussed why finding affordable mental health care is so difficult on NPR’s “A1” on May 18. Freelancer Charlotte Huff discussed how Texas abortion laws complicate miscarriage treatment on “Texas Standard” on May 16. Related Topics Contact Us Submit a Story Tip Source
On a humid August afternoon in 2020, two caskets ― one silver, one white ― sat by holes in the ground at a small, graveside service in the town of Travelers Rest, South Carolina. The family had just lost a mom and dad, both to covid-19. “They died five days apart,” said Allison Leaver, their […]
Cameron Wright, 16, has always seen himself as a “dude.” As a young child, Cameron didn’t have the words to explain the disconnect between how he saw himself and how the world saw him. But he knew that despite being born in a girl’s body, he was meant to be a boy. After taking reversible […]