Latest From California Healthline:
California Healthline Original Stories
California Requires Suicide Prevention Phone Number On Student IDs
The new law, a response to escalating suicide rates among teens, is intended to ensure students know that immediate help is available if they need it. (Mark Kreidler, )
Good morning! Officials from San Francisco and Santa Clara County have filed a suit requesting an injunction of the Trump administration’s “public charge” rule change that they argue punishes poor immigrants. Read more on that below, but first here are some of your other top California news stories for the day.
Brutal Environment In Restaurant Industry Has Created A Mental Health Crisis For Workers. Now Advocates Are Taking A Stand: A survey of 2,000 restaurant workers conducted by online support group Chefs with Issues and food industry advocacy nonprofit Heirloom Foundation found that 94% of respondents have dealt with mental health issues, including depression, anxiety and substance abuse. Only 2% reported feeling they could speak openly about these issues at work. Destigmatizing mental health issues has become a priority across the restaurant industry. Accomplishing that goal is a trickier proposition, however. One person who is trying is Patrick Mulvaney, a restaurant owner who experience the deaths of friends in the industry. In late 2018, he and his wife, Bobbin Mulvaney, partnered with the Innovation Learning Network, a health organization in San Francisco, to create a peer counseling program in his own restaurant. Now, he’s emerged as a leader in the national conversation about mental health in the restaurant industry, and his program is being piloted in 22 restaurants in Sacramento. Read more from Janelle Bitker of the San Francisco Chronicle.
A California Law To Prevent Hospitals From Dumping Homeless Patients Has Gone Into Effect. But The Problem Hasn’t Been Eliminated: A Ventura county hospital leader said that despite the law the still-sparse availability of care and housing options mean many homeless patients are kept in the hospital until they can care for themselves. Then they are discharged to the street at their own choice. "We can't make up a place for them to go if there's no place to go," said Dr. Leah Kory who treats many homeless patients at Ventura County Medical Center. "It's heartbreaking... There's only so much we can do in a hospital setting." But advocates say that there has to be a way to solve the problem. "Housing is health," said Kelly Bruno, CEO of the National Health Foundation nonprofit that runs the center and two similar sites in Los Angeles. "It's impossible to maintain your health without housing... You go to the street and end up right back in the hospital." Read more from Tom Kisken of the Ventura County Star.
Below, check out the full round-up of California Healthline original stories, state coverage and the best of the rest of the national news for the day.
More News From Across The State
San Francisco Chronicle:
SF, Santa Clara County Ask Judge To Block ‘Public Charge’ Immigration Policy
San Francisco City Attorney Dennis Herrera and Santa Clara County Counsel James R. Williams filed a joint lawsuit against the Department of Homeland Security last month challenging the “public charge rule.” On Wednesday, the two filed a joint motion in U.S. District Court for a preliminary injunction that would prohibit DHS from implementing the rule as the lawsuit makes its way through federal court. (Sanchez, 8/28)
KPBS:
Study: San Diego Senior Centers Unprepared For Over 65 Population Surge
This cohort makes up nearly a third of San Diego's ever-expanding senior population and the region is unprepared to serve them, according to a new study by the San Diego Seniors Community Foundation. There are almost half a million people in San Diego County over the age of 65 and the number will hit 1 million by 2030, the study said.Currently, San Diego County has 28 senior centers that serve only 8% of the area's total senior population, according to the study. (Sridhar, 8/27)
LAist:
LA's Current Homeless Outreach Strategy Is Misguided, Says City Controller
The L.A. City Controller's office released an audit Wednesday that questions the effectiveness homeless outreach programs by the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority (LAHSA) in the City of Los Angeles. The audit says the current strategy is misguided, and has an underwhelming track record when it comes to moving people from the street into permanent housing. (Tinoco, 8/28)
Sacramento Bee:
Sacramento CA Could Have Homeless Tent Cities, Car Camps
As homeless men, women and children in Sacramento wait for three new large shelters to open, another model that local officials have repeatedly rejected over the years is now quickly gaining traction. The “safe ground” model – essentially creating an area where homeless people can live safely in tent cities or in cars – has not been a part of Mayor Darrell Steinberg’s homeless plan. Steinberg has instead been pushing hard for large shelters with rehousing services. But as the city enters its fifth month without a city-run shelter, other alternatives are now coming to the fore. (Clift, 8/29)
San Jose Mercury News:
Contra Costa’s Homeless Residents Are Struggling Longer To Find Housing
Frustrated homebuyers and renters aren’t the only Contra Costa County residents feeling the heavy weight of the region’s housing affordability crisis. According to a recently released report, the crisis has Contra Costa County’s homeless also bearing the brunt — they’re taking twice as long to find permanent housing, a third more of them are dying on the streets and the number who are 62 years or older has doubled. (Sciacca, 8/28)
Los Angeles Times:
California Housing Crisis Traps Seniors With High Rents And Evictions
The threat of displacement and loss of community and routine can take a mental and physical toll. Experts say that’s especially true for seniors, who are perhaps the most vulnerable to California’s rising rents and evictions of any age group, and the fastest growing in the state. (Khouri and Shalby, 8/29)
Capital Public Radio:
Sacramento Approves Two New Homeless Shelters Despite Opposition From Some Council Members
A divided Sacramento City Council approved two new 100-bed homeless shelters on Tuesday, one in South Sacramento’s Meadowview neighborhood and the other near Oak Park. The Meadowview shelter — next to the Sam and Bonnie Pannell Community Center — will be for women and children only. But Councilman Larry Carr, whose district includes Meadowview, voted against it. (Milne, 8/28)
Reuters:
Let It Burn: U.S. Fights Wildfires With Fire, Backed By Trump
It was the kind of fire that has terrified communities across the drought-ridden U.S. West in the past few years: a ponderosa pine forest ablaze in the mountains of New Mexico filling the air with thick, aromatic smoke. Except this fire was deliberately set by state penitentiary prisoners, dressed in red flame-resistant clothing and dripping a mix of gasoline and diesel around trees and scrub. (8/28)
Santa Rosa Press Democrat:
Russian River Health & Wellness Center Being Built In Guerneville To Replace Outdated Clinic
Now the Guerneville clinic is going to get a modern home. On Friday, operator West County Health Centers broke ground on the $14 million Russian River Health & Wellness Center and expects to finish construction and open the 10,000-square-foot medical and dental clinic’s doors by late 2020. ...The medical center will enable West County Health Centers to consolidate medical, mental and dental health services, said Jason Cunningham, the organization’s chief medical officer. Many of those services are now conducted in separate buildings. The dental offices, for example, were moved to a Sebastopol clinic after the 2015 fire. (Espinoza, 8/29)
The Wall Street Journal:
Juul Introduces Checkout System To Combat Underage Purchases
E-cigarette startup Juul Labs Inc., facing blame for a surge in teenage vaping, is offering more than $100 million in incentives to retailers to install a new electronic age-verification system intended to curb illegal sales to minors. The modification to point-of-sale software blocks each Juul purchase until the shopper’s driver’s license or other government identification has been scanned. It also limits each purchase to a maximum of one vaporizer and four refill packs. So far, Juul said, Cumberland Farms Inc., QuikTrip Corp. and other chains representing 40,000 outlets have agreed to adopt the system. (Maloney, 8/28)
The Associated Press:
Doctors Don't Always Know What Patients Will Owe For Meds
It's the No. 1 reason patients don't fill their prescriptions: sticker shock. While the price of almost any good or service can be found online, most Americans don't know what they'll owe for a prescription medication until they get it. Unexpected costs contribute to the estimated 20 to 30 percent of prescriptions that are never filled, which can lead to health problems from untreated medical conditions. (Perrone, 8/28)
Stat:
Medicare Paid Millions For Drugs Already Covered By Hospice Benefits
Despite a previous warning, the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services failed to take steps to ensure the Medicare Part D program does not also pay for medicines that should be covered under the Medicare Part A hospice benefit, resulting in an estimated $161 million in duplicate payments in 2016, according to a new federal government analysis. Specifically, Medicare, Part D paid $422.7 million for 6.7 million prescriptions for beneficiaries who received hospice care. (Silverman, 8/28)
The Associated Press:
US Agency: Hospital Forced Nurse To Participate In Abortion
Vermont's largest hospital forced a nurse to participate in an abortion procedure over her moral objections in violation of federal law, a government civil rights agency said Wednesday. The University of Vermont Medical Center in Burlington could lose some federal funding if the two parties cannot agree within 30 days on the hospital's policies on employee participation in abortions, the Office for Civil Rights of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services announced. (Ring, 8/28)
The Associated Press:
Pinterest To Direct Vaccine-Related Searches To Health Orgs
Pinterest said Wednesday it will try to combat misinformation about vaccines by showing only information from health organizations when people search. Social media sites have been tryingto combat the spread of misinformation about vaccines. Pinterest previously tried blocking all searches for vaccines with mixed results. (8/28)
Stat:
A Heretical Approach To Chemotherapy Is Extending Patients' Lives
No scientist with even a rudimentary moral compass and an ounce of intellectual humility takes human experiments lightly, given how much can go wrong. But Dr. Robert Gatenby was especially aware of the stakes. An oncologist at Moffitt Cancer Center in Tampa, Fla., he has spent years studying how tumor cells respond to chemotherapy, especially in patients whose cancer has metastasized well beyond the original tumor, as when malignant prostate cells invade bones like gang members expanding their turf. Now Gatenby was ready to put his theories to a real-world test by treating men with advanced prostate cancer in a way that broke all the rules. (Begley, 8/29)