Baptist to share Madisonville hospital with Deaconess, which now also has hospitals in Henderson and Morganfield

Baptist Health Madisonville Starting Sept. 1, the hospital in Madisonville will be jointly operated by Baptist Health, which has owned it for nine years, and Deaconess Health System Inc. of Evansville, which recently added two nearby Kentucky hospitals. The joint operation will include physicians' offices and outpatient...

Read More

People in recovery, and people trying to help them, talk about it at annual conference designed to help employers help, too

By Jacqueline Pitts The Bottom Line, Ky. Chamber of Commerce Kentuckians who are in recovery from substance-use disorder, and people who are trying to help them, talked about their efforts Tuesday at an annual conference designed to encourage employers to help. Employment, assistance, wrap-around services, trainings, and...

Read More

The pandemic isn't over: Virus activity in Kentucky is picking up as the more contagious Delta variant spreads across the country

Kentucky Health News graph, based on initial, unadjusted daily case reports By Al Cross Kentucky Health News After three weeks of pretty steady decline, coronavirus activity in Kentucky is picking up a little. The state reported 244 new cases of the virus Tuesday, the most in almost two weeks, and that raised the...

Read More

McConnell keeps promoting shots as daily vaccinations in Ky. fluctuate around 10,000; first sweepstakes drawing is Friday

McConnell in Louisville on Monday (Photo by Yasmine Yumaa, WFPL) Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, on a tour of Kentucky during a Senate recess, continued to promote vaccination against the coronavirus. “I was a polio victim when I was a kid,” McConnell said Monday. “It took 70 years to develop a polio vaccine,...

Read More

Ky. OSHA complaints rose 45% in 2020, partly due to pandemic; issues are likely to linger as workplaces try to get back to normal

Courier Journal graph, adapted by Kentucky Health News Kentucky workers filed 45 percent more occupational safety and health complaints in 2020 than in 2019, but only 8 percent of them have been investigated, reports Matt Mencarini of the Courier Journal. The increase could have had causes other than the pandemic,...

Read More

Salmonella outbreaks in backyard poultry sicken Kentuckians

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention chart, adapted by Kentucky Health News Chickens are common in Kentucky backyards. (Getty Images photo via CDC) At least 17 people in Kentucky have become sick in an outbreak of Salmonella bacteria that are linked to backyard poultry, according to the Centers for Disease...

Read More

Louisville-based columnist for Washington Post includes Beshear and two other governors among list of heroes of the pandemic

Govs. Andy Beshear, Mike DeWine (Ohio) and Jay Inslee (Wash.) By Perry Bacon The Washington Post I was relieved in 2019 when voters in Kentucky, where I live, rejected giving then-incumbent Gov. Matt Bevin (R) a second term. Unlike Bevin, who spent his time in office on Trump-like attacks on the press, judiciary,...

Read More

Six of the state's 61 health departments are losing their directors; pandemic made some of them delay or advance their departure

By Melissa Patrick Kentucky Health News Nearly 10 percent of the state's health departments are losing their directors, with five retiring and one resigning. And the 61 district and county health departments are losing other staff due to fatigue and stress of the pandemic. Dr. Kraig Humbaugh Some of the directors...

Read More

'Functionally 100%' of new coronavirus cases this month have been among the unvaccinated; back-to-work incentive offered

Washington Post chart, adapted by Kentucky Health News; for a larger version, click on it. By Al Cross Kentucky Health News Making what they called the best argument for vaccination against the coronavirus, Gov. Andy Beshear and his health commissioner said Thursday that only 0.08 percent of recent virus cases in...

Read More

Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack talks at Rural Health Journalism Workshop about boosting federal nutrition programs

By Melissa Patrick Kentucky Health News The Department of Agriculture is making sure children have enough to eat this summer, updating temporary food-assistance programs and evaluating federal formulas for food assistance, Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack told a rural health journalism workshop Wednesday. Vilsack said...

Read More

Risks of vaccines are very small, but one in four Kentucky adults think those risks outweigh the benefits of getting vaccinated

Foundation for a Healthy Kentucky poll, Feb. 11-March 12, 2021; error margin +/-3.5 percentage points By Melissa Patrick Kentucky Health News One in four Kentucky adults told pollsters last winter that the benefits of vaccines for adults are outweighed by the risks of taking them. That poses an obstacle to getting...

Read More

Ky. is reporting fewer than 200 new coronavirus cases per day, and the share of residents testing positive has fallen below 2%

State Dept. for Public Health map, adapted by Ky. Health News; click on it to enlarge. By Al Cross Kentucky Health News Leading indicators of the pandemic in Kentucky have passed more milestones on a steady downward trend, but new daily vaccinations against the coronavirus are also declining, after a two-week rise. The...

Read More

Kentucky still ranks 37th in well-being of children in latest Kids Count Data Book, but not progressing as much as other states

By Melissa Patrick Kentucky Health News The annual Kids Count Data Book on children's well-being, released June 21 by the Annie E. Casey Foundation and Kentucky Youth Advocates, again ranks Kentucky 37th in the nation for the overall well-being of its children.  The latest data are for 2019, and are largely compared...

Read More

Temporary Medicaid ending; special marketplace enrollment period ends Aug. 15; premium-free COBRA ends in September

FamiliesUSA graphic By Melissa Patrick Kentucky Health News Kentuckians have about two more months to buy reduced-cost health insurance on the federal marketplace under the special enrollment period. The deadline to sign up on healthcare.gov is Aug. 15.  The Biden administration reopened the marketplace...

Read More