Bob CollinsInsurance companies are flagging people who’ve bought Naloxone, as in the case of one woman who has been trying to buy life insurance, but has been denied because of the prescription. Read more →
MPR News Reflections and observations on the news
Health
As we’ve noted before, we are not big fans of the touch screens that have sprouted up at the renovated McDonald’s. We like human contact and, besides, it takes much longer to order through the technology than to simply walk to the counter.
But now some research in the UK has confirmed the wisdom of our disdain. Read more →
We know more about the death of a young mother, whose obituary acknowledged her addiction to opiods. A subsequent lawsuit reveals she sought help, but was instead arrested. Her family says she was denied medical care by police. Read more →
In mental health care, is something better than nothing? Some experts and an intermediary between providers and insurance companies disagree. Read more →
The family of Thomas Kingsley Lawrence certainly had a difficult mission in writing the obituary for their son, who took his own life.
They met the challenge head on, and produced one of the most courageous and honest obituaries we’ve seen. Read more →
Peter DeMarco, whose wife died from an asthma attack outside the locked ER door of a hospital , met with the hospital’s CEO, chief medical officer, and head nurse on Tuesday, a week after DeMarco, a writer, described his wife’s ordeal in the Boston Globe Magazine. Read more →
Here’s your daily dose of sweetness: Brenda Buurstra, a nurse in Kalamazoo, Mich., says she sings to patients all the time; it’s just that the video that someone took of her the other day is the first time she “got caught.” Roberta Lytle — that’s her dad in the bed — is the one who Read more →
Peter DeMarco said he wants to know every step the hospital has taken and also wants it shared with every other hospital in the country so that what happened to his wife won’t happen to anyone else. Read more →
When Laura DeMarco called 9-1-1 to get help for her asthma attack, she said she was on the street. But in the time it took to find her, her brain lost the oxygen it needed to survive. She was outside the ER door. Read more →
Steve Robson wrote last week about his days as an intern in in the central Queensland city of Rockhampton.
He tried to take his own life and he unburdened himself last week from his shame of not using his experience to help others.
In so doing, he learned a startling truth. Read more →
We’ve never met Lee Sjolander, the police chief of Kenyon, Minn., and that’s something we’ve got to do something about one of these days. Nonetheless, we’ve made him the official police chief of NewsCut, and not just because of his ability to write and communicate with people, but his honesty in discussing his struggles over the years, almost as if he’s like the rest of us.
Read more →
There are plenty of big, national problems that are too complex to make a dent in solving. Opioid addiction isn’t one of them. Read more →
Talk is cheap and nowhere is it more inexpensive than La Crosse, Wis., where neighbors say they support veterans of the military. Read more →
It took longer than it should have for Dunkin’ Donuts to spring into action after what its employees did to a homeless man in upstate New York on Sunday night. Read more →
One of the worst things about Instagram is it’s impossible not to see the attached comments. Read more →