Bob CollinsOver the years, the Veterans Administration has worked out a plan to erase the reports of terrible treatment and conditions in VA nursing homes, including a 2009 Pittsburgh Tribune-Review story about a home in Philadelphia where a veteran’s leg had to be amputated after an infection in his foot went untreated for so long his toes turned black and attracted maggots. Read more →
MPR News Reflections and observations on the news
Health
School districts walk a fine line when a student takes his/her own life, often saying nothing, acknowledging little in the belief that to talk about a student’s suicide leads to others. It’s one of the reasons why the fact suicide is the second leading cause of death among young people is a fact that surprises so many people. Read more →
If you’re looking for mental health care, and you pay Blue Cross Blue Shield for your health insurance, you’re probably not going to get it. Read more →
Former NHL player Nick Boynton — an ‘enforcer’ in his days in hockey — penned what initially sounded very much like a suicide note today on The Players Tribune. Read more →
Beasley Baker, Russ Galvan, Randy Kohl, Jesse Harrison and Ben Brooks were honored by the Coast Guard on Tuesday because they saw the man floating in the river, fired up a tow boat, and threw him a lifeline, which he’d initially rejected. Read more →
Marilyn Hagerty, the columnist for the Grand Forks Herald, got roasted by those who thought they know restaurant reviews better because she wrote a restaurant review of an Olive Garden some years ago. Then Anthony Bourdain stepped in and defended her with a single tweet. Read more →
People are and have been asking for help. And too often the answer — closing a crisis hotline, rejecting a mental health clinic in your town because you’re afraid of the impact on your children, or turning a wellness check into a SWAT shootout — is ‘no.’ Read more →
The decision to close a statewide crisis hotline has never looked more faulty than with the news from the Centers for Disease Control that the rate of suicides in Minnesota is among the most severe in the country. Read more →
The suicide of a well-known person has opened the window on a national dialogue on mental health and depression, a traditionally short period during which we are afforded the opportunity to learn something about the health scourge from which we typically turn away. Read more →
It’s the latest community where someone is trying to do something about access to mental health care, something that everyone gets behind elsewhere until — we’re looking at you, Forest Lake — people object. Read more →
Graduation season always brings with it news of school administrators somewhere taking advantage of one last chance to control the lives of the kids they’ve just sent out to the world. Read more →
Jails and prisons fill with the addicted, and the country’s homes fill with parents who can only hold their breath and try not to give up on their children. Read more →
Amy Parrish, 98, apparently fell down the stairs at her home in Richfield. Her husband, John, 95, tried to get to her. He fell, too.
And outside their neat cottage, life went on. Read more →
I cannot speak for all Baby Boomers, of course, but for many of us, there was no more horrifying boogeyman in our youth than the iron lung. Read more →
We’re a pretty great species when we want to be. Read more →