Latest KFF Health News Stories
Health Clinic In Indonesia Promotes Conservation Through Medical Care
VOA News profiles a medical clinic in West Kalimantan, Indonesia, called Alam Sehat Lestari, or ASRI, and established by American Kinari Webb, that aims to promote health and wellness through quality medical care and conservation. In addition to allowing patients to pay for health care “through non-monetary means, such as woven baskets, seedlings or labor exchanges,” clinic workers educate patients about conservation as they wait to register, and each month they visit surrounding communities to determine whether they are illegally logging from a nearby national park, the news service notes. “Communities that do not participate in illegal logging pay about 40 percent less than those that do,” according to VOA News (Schonhardt, 10/4).
Britain To Cut Bilateral Aid For Global HIV/AIDS Projects By Nearly One-Third By 2015
Britain is cutting bilateral aid for HIV/AIDS projects in developing countries by 32 percent, from 59.9 million pounds to 41 million pounds, between now and 2015, according to data from the Department for International Development (DfID), the Guardian reports. “The drop in support comes despite a 92 percent rise in Britain’s bilateral aid for global health, from 376 million pounds to 723 million pounds by 2015, when reproductive, maternal and newborn health will absorb 64 percent of DfID’s global health funding,” the newspaper writes.
CBS News Reports On Afghanistan’s Efforts To Improve Maternal Health
CBS News reports on Afghanistan’s efforts to improve maternal health, writing, “In larger cities, maternity care is improving. But modern health care is a world away for most Afghans. For a pregnant woman, traveling the rough terrain to a clinic is nearly impossible. Only one in four births take place under professional care, so even the smallest medical issue can be fatal.” The news service adds, “One bit of hope: USAID helps sponsor midwife classes to fill the gaping hole in the number of trained medical professionals, a result of the Taliban’s prohibition on educating women. More than 2,500 midwives have graduated, and the infant mortality rate has since declined 22 percent” (Clark, 10/4).
First Edition: October 5, 2011
Today’s early morning highlights from the major news organizations, including reports about Congress’ continuing struggle with budget and spending issues.
High Court Hears Medicaid Case, Weighs Right To Object To Cuts
The Supreme Court kicked off its new term Monday by hearing arguments in a key Medicaid case that tests whether providers and patients can go to court to challenge decisions by cash-strapped states to reduce Medicaid payments.
Health Law Decision Will Have Lasting Impact On Supreme Court
Politico Pro examines concern about the impact an election-year health law decision could have on the institution of the court how it could could steer the justices away from this timeline.
New York Times Reports On Proposed Cuts To Foreign Aid
As Congress looks to reduce the U.S. national debt, “both the Republican-controlled House and the Democrat-controlled Senate have proposed slashing financing for the State Department and its related aid agencies at a time of desperate humanitarian crises and uncertain political developments,” the New York Times reports. The proposed cuts to President Barack Obama’s FY12 spending request would be “the first significant cuts in overseas aid in nearly two decades, a retrenchment that officials and advocates say reflects the country’s diminishing ability to influence the world,” according to the newspaper. The reductions would affect global health programs and humanitarian assistance for disaster-hit areas, among other programs, the newspaper notes.
Uganda’s Free Health Care System ‘In Crisis,’ Daily Monitor Reports
Uganda’s Daily Monitor reports on the status of the country’s free health care system, which it writes “is in crisis despite the billions of shillings of mostly donor money flowing in every year.” According to the newspaper, “Visits to a dozen health centers across the country revealed a chronic shortage of beds, drugs and medical personnel, confirming a recent verdict by the Anti-Corruption Coalition of Uganda that ‘service delivery and general care is almost not there.'”
Vodacom Tanzania, Local NGO Use Mobile Phone Banking To Help Women With Obstetric Fistula
The Guardian examines a text messaging program in Tanzania initiated by Vodacom Tanzania and local NGO Comprehensive Community Based Rehabilitation in Tanzania (CCBRT) that utilizes Africa’s mobile phone banking system, M-Pesa, to provide women suffering from obstetric fistula, caused by difficult childbirth, with the funds necessary to travel to health facilities for treatment. “CCRBT and Vodacom have now appointed a team of 60 ‘ambassadors’ to travel around the country diagnosing women with the condition. Within an hour of an ambassador finding a patient a date is set for surgery and money for transport is texted to the ambassador, who takes the patient to the bus stop,” according to the Guardian.
Local Community Health Workers Aim To Improve Maternal And Infant Health In Rural Timor-Leste
In this post in USAID’s “IMPACTblog,” Rick Scott, mission director of USAID in Timor-Leste, reports on a health-focused field trip to the “sub-village” of Hatugeo in Timor-Leste’s central highlands where USAID-trained community health workers are working to improve maternal and child health by providing pre- and postnatal care information to expectant and new mothers. Hatugeo is located in the district of Ermera, where the infant mortality rate is 70 deaths per 1,000 live births, only three percent of mothers deliver their babies in a health care facility, and a higher percentage of children show signs of malnourishment and illness than in the rest of the country (10/3).
Address Water And Sanitation In Urban Slums To Curb Spread Of Diarrheal Disease
A lack of water and poor sanitation, a result of rapid urbanization being experienced in big cities and small towns throughout the developing world, urgently need tackling in order to curb the resulting spread of diarrheal disease “in what the U.N. terms ‘informal settlements’ — slums, as they are more commonly known,” Timeyin Uwejamomere, senior policy analyst for urban water and sanitation services at WaterAid, writes in this post in the Guardian’s “Poverty Matters Blog.”
Doctors’ Support For MMR Vaccine Vital To Halt Measles Outbreaks In Europe, Health Official Says
“With almost 30,000 cases of measles and eight deaths from the disease recorded in the European Union so far this year, a leading health official is urging doctors to do more to ensure parents have their children vaccinated with” the measles, mumps and rubella (MMR) vaccine, Reuters reports. Marc Sprenger, director of the European Center for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC), “said MMR vaccine coverage rates across the region are currently around 90 percent, leaving significant groups such as children or young adults unprotected,” and that “it was crucial for pediatricians and family doctors to give balanced, evidence-based information to help parents decide on vaccinations,” Reuters writes.
IRIN Examines Decline Of Public Health Services In Lesotho
IRIN reports on a decline in public health services in Lesotho, writing, “In 2007, the government of Lesotho and [the Christian Health Association of Lesotho], which runs 75 health centers and eight hospitals … signed a Memorandum of Understanding with the aim of making health services more accessible to ordinary Basotho who could not afford even the nominal fees that both state and CHAL-run health facilities charged. Patients would now get free medical services and drugs at health centers and subsidized medical care and drugs at hospitals. However, the resulting influx of patients put a huge strain on health centers and their supply of drugs and many over-burdened government and CHAL health centers have taken to referring patients to private clinics and pharmacies.”
Cambodia Reports 12,392 Cases Of Dengue Fever, 54 Child Deaths Since January
Cambodia’s director of dengue control at the Ministry of Health, Ngan Chantha, said on Monday that from January to September of this year, 12,392 cases of dengue fever had been reported and 54 children have died of the disease, Xinhua reports. In all of 2010, 5,497 cases of dengue and 37 child deaths from the disease were recorded, according to the news agency.
“The most popular contraceptive for women in eastern and southern Africa, a hormone shot given every three months, appears to double the risk the women will become infected with HIV,” according to a study involving 3,800 sero-discordant couples in Botswana, Kenya, Rwanda, South Africa, Tanzania, Uganda and Zambia, the New York Times reports. The study, led by researchers at the University of Washington and published Monday in the journal Lancet Infectious Diseases, also found that when the contraceptive was “used by HIV-positive women, their male partners are twice as likely to become infected than if the women had used no contraception,” the newspaper writes. In addition, the study “found that oral contraceptives appeared to increase risk of HIV infection and transmission, but the number of pill users in the study was too small to be considered statistically significant, the authors said,” according to the New York Times.
New Rule Targets Poor Performers In Medicare Advantage, Part D Program
The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services unveiled a rule Monday that would allow the agency to drop plans that fail for three years to earn at least three stars under a five-star rating system.
Senate Panel Looks Hard At Medicare Payments To Home Health Companies
An investigation by the Senate Finance Committee found that three home health care companies manipulated Medicare’s billing system to increase payments.
Drug Abusers Go Doctor Shopping With Medicare Benefit
Thousands of Medicare beneficiaries are using the program’s prescription drug benefit to gain prescriptions for frequently abused medications, according to a new Government Accountability Office Report.
Barbara Bush Says Cutting Foreign Aid Would Have ‘Enormous Implications’ At ‘Power Of 1%’ Event
At an event at the Newseum in Washington, D.C., on Monday, Barbara Bush, CEO of Global Health Corps and a board member of Population Services International (PSI), told the Daily Caller that reducing foreign aid as part of efforts to reduce the national debt would have “enormous implications for the U.S. if we don’t continue the efforts that we’ve already started” (Ballasy, 10/3). The event marked the launch of a campaign called “The Power of 1%,” sponsored by PSI, FHI360, PATH, World Vision and ONE and aimed at highlighting “the economics of global health and the benefits U.S. investments overseas have for Americans at home,” according to a campaign press release (.pdf) (10/3).
