State Highlights: D.C. Works To Improve One Of Worst Maternal Mortality Rates In Country; Massachusetts’ Health Spending Drops To Lowest Level Growth In 5 Years

The Washington Post: How To Solve D.C.’s Maternal Health Crisis? A Health Advocacy Group Proposes Some Ideas
What is clear is that D.C. has among the worst maternal mortality rates in the country. What is clear is that if you’re a black mother in D.C. you’re twice as likely to have a preterm birth than a white mother. What is less clear is how to change these outcomes. On Wednesday, medical providers, policy makers and community organizations gathered to tackle that goal at the district’s first-ever Maternal and Infant Health Summit at the Walter E. Washington Center. (Schmidt, 9/12)

Boston Globe: Growth In State Health Care Spending Drops To Lowest Level In Five Years
Total health spending in Massachusetts increased 1.6 percent in 2017 — the lowest level of growth in five years — even as costs remain a burden for many consumers. Spending on health care totaled $61.1 billion, or $8,907 per person, according to the report from the Center for Health Information and Analysis, a state agency. That was within a state-mandated target for controlling costs. (Dayal McCluskey, 9/12)

The Associated Press: Louisiana Abortion Clinic Wants Regulatory Rewrite Nullified
A Louisiana abortion clinic asked a state judge Wednesday to throw out a 2015 state rewrite of clinic regulations, saying the health department ignored the rules for making such changes. Hope Medical Group for Women in Shreveport argues that the Louisiana Department of Health disregarded reams of public comments about the regulations when they were being proposed. (9/12)

The Baltimore Sun: Families Struggle To Find Nurses To Take Care Of Disabled Children, Other Relatives
Jill Pelovitz depends on an army of in-home nurses to keep her teenage daughter alive. Fourteen-year-old Nadiya suffers from a rare genetic disorder that causes life-threatening seizures, breathing problems and other complications. The teenager, who needs help with basic life skills such as dressing and walking, requires constant monitoring in case she has a seizure, especially at night when she is sleeping in their Severn home. (McDaniels, 9/13)

Tampa Bay Times: Tobacco Company And Major Contributor To Rick Scott Violated Campaign Laws In Montana
RAI Services Company, the makers of Newport and Camel cigarettes, didn't disclose their financial involvement in a campaign to defeat a Montana ballot initiative that would tax cigarettes more to pay for healthcare programs, the state's top campaign official determined. A Sept. 5 decision found "sufficient evidence" to show RAI and another tobacco company, Altria (formerly Philip Morris), helped fund the campaign against the ballot initiative and didn't report it within five days as required by Montana law. (Contorno, 9/12)

New Orleans Times-Picayune: Louisiana’s Mental Health Care System Is Broken. Here’s How We Got Here. 
Louisiana is in quiet crisis.­ The state’s mental health system has been gradually broken under the weight of financial cuts and psychiatric hospital closures. State leaders took what critics call a short-term view, gutting mental health to fix budget gaps, leaving emergency rooms, jails and nursing homes filled with the seriously mentally ill – at often-ignored taxpayer and human expense. Much of those health care cuts over the last decade took place under the leadership of then-Gov. Bobby Jindal. His administration closed New Orleans Adolescent Hospital in 2009 with promises those inpatient services would continue at Southeast Louisiana State Hospital in Mandeville. Then the Jindal administration closed that hospital in 2012. State funding cuts to other mental care services and losses in federal money added to the problems.  (Sayre, 9/12)

Des Moines Register: Mental Health Care Scarce For Iowa Kids; New Committee Tackles Issue
Iowa is critically short of mental health treatment for children, and there is little coordination of the few services that are available, health care leaders say. Parents like Clogg are left to flounder, trying to use Google or the telephone to figure out where their kids should go for help, how long they would have to wait for it and whether their insurance would pay. A new state children’s mental health committee, appointed by Gov. Kim Reynolds, started work last month. It is the fourth such committee since 2011. The previous panels disbanded after releasing reports on what should be done. Little changed. (Leys, 9/12)

The Washington Post: Xavier Cunningham, 10, Survives After A Metal Meat Skewer Impales His Face
Xavier Cunningham and his buddies were climbing into a treehouse when a wasp landed on his hand. The children had stumbled into a massive yellow jacket nest Saturday afternoon in a neighbor’s treehouse in western Missouri, and Xavier, who was at the top of the ladder, tried to swat one of them away. But in the process, Xavier’s stepfather said, the 10-year-old lost his balance and fell face-first to the ground — right where he and his friends had stuck a long metal meat skewer they had found. (Bever, 9/12)

The Associated Press: NYC To Add Nonbinary 'X' Designation To Birth Certificates
People born in New York City who don't identify as male or female will have the option of changing their birth certificates to "X'' under legislation passed Wednesday by the City Council. The bill adopted by a 41-6 vote will also allow parents to choose the "X'' designation for their newborns, and it will permit adults to change the gender on their birth certificates without an affidavit from a doctor or mental health professional. (9/12)

The Associated Press: Delaware Reports Fifth Human Case Of West Nile Virus
Delaware health official say they have confirmed another human case of West Nile virus, marking the state’s fifth case this year. The News Journal of Wilmington reports this case involving a 57-year-old New Castle County man makes this Delaware’s highest number of confirmed cases since 2015. Officials says the man’s case still is awaiting confirmation from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Officials confirmed this year’s first Delawarean case of the virus in early August. (9/13)

The Associated Press: Volunteer Who Rocks Babies Donates $1M To Alabama Hospital
A volunteer who rocks babies in a neonatal intensive care unit has donated more than $1 million to an Alabama hospital. The University of South Alabama said in a news release last week that Louis and Melinda Mapp donated more than $1 million to USA Health Children's & Women's Hospital's Hollis J. Wiseman Neonatal Intensive Care Unit. The gift will establish an endowment that will enable staff to identify and offset unforeseen needs within the unit. (9/12)

Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Milwaukee County Jail Health Contractor Wins Delay In Criminal Case
The Miami-based contractor that provides medical services at the Milwaukee County Jail has decided not to resolve criminal charges that it falsified inmates' records. Milwaukee County District Attorney John Chisholm charged the company in February with seven misdemeanor counts, some related to the dehydration death of Terrill Thomas, several months after an inquest jury found probable cause that seven jail employees responsible for Thomas broke the law. (Vielmetti, 9/13)

Boston Globe: Marijuana Dispensary Slams State For Pesticide Bust
Members of the Massachusetts medical marijuana industry are warning that a state crackdown on their use of pesticides — including natural compounds used widely on organic food — would cripple growing operations and threaten the supply of cannabis to patients who rely on the drug. Regulators at the state Department of Public Health ordered Colorado-based medical marijuana company Good Chemistry to close its growing and processing operation in Bellingham and its dispensary in Worcester after a routine inspection earlier this month. (Adams, 9/13)