Oklahoma Watch (https://oklahomawatch.org/category/publichealth/)
Thousands of Oklahomans suffer from depression, sometimes to a debilitating degree. The problem is especially common and invisible among aging residents. Victor Guillermo, of Oklahoma City, an Air Force veteran, has struggled daily with depression since his wife died.
Although the Pauls Valley hospital has closed, the city continues to hold on to 28 nursing homes whose enhanced federal payments were supposed to help keep the hospital open. The city is waiting for a determination from federal regulators on the arrangement.
Addiction-recovery homes across Oklahoma are turning away people who are trying to escape opioid addiction by taking medications considered highly effective for recovery. Use of Suboxone and similar medications is common, but many residents of the state’s Oxford Houses believe that complete abstinence is the only way to truly beat addiction.
After years of financial struggles, the Pauls Valley Regional Medical Center has closed, with officials saying they could not secure enough funds to keep the hospital going. More than 100 hospital employees will lose their jobs and the city of 6,200 will be deprived of a nearby health center offering basic surgeries, wound care and stabilization.
Pauls Valley Regional Medical Center is once again the poster child for struggling rural hospitals as it battled a cash crunch and lawsuit verdict it had to pay. Then, on Oct. 12, the hospital closed.
In this short video, find out what State Question 793, on the Nov. 6 ballot, would change on the consumer market for vision care and sales of eyeglasses.
A handful of small Oklahoma cities have become owners of dozens of Oklahoma nursing homes across the state in the past 15 months, hoping to tap into a federal program that will bring them millions of dollars. Can they ensure quality of care?
Licenses for a total of 46 nursing homes are owned by a handful of Oklahoma cities and one town. Here’s a list of the nursing homes and their owners.
The federal government has clawed back another $32 million in Medicaid matching funds as part of an ongoing dispute over Oklahoma’s use of the money to help fund medical schools that treat Medicaid patients. However, the agency said it would provide matching money through June 2019.
Because marijuana is still illegal at the federal level, all transactions in medical marijuana in Oklahoma will likely be made in cash, from growers to buyers, as banks will avoid the business. That will bring a host of complications.
This interactive map shows results by county in the vote on State Question 788, which legalized medical marijuana.
