New Haven Independent

Health Care

Double Duty at Casa

by Melinda Tuhus | Jul 30, 2006 11:34 am | Comments (0)

One recent Tuesday saw a confluence of hospital outreach programs unfold for the mostly Latino residents of Casa Otoñal, a senior housing complex on Sylvan Avenue in the Hill. Outside the building was the Yale New Haven Hospital Mammogram Van, making its yearly visit to provide breast cancer screenings for many of Casa’s female residents, including Ramonita Santos (pictured). Inside the building Project Elder Care, sponsored by the Hospital of St. Raphael, was providing primary geriatric care. A reporter detected a little bit of friendly competition.

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Cops, Kids Talk Guns

by Allan Appel | Jul 14, 2006 10:24 am | Comments (4)

“Last night, I had to watch a boy die of four gunshot wounds to the stomach. I suppose he thought he was tough, but it was terrible. He was screaming for his mother in agony while he died. I don’t want to have to have to stand over any of you guys.” So went an evening of blunt talk between cops like Jason Jackson (at right in photo) and Dixwell teens at the Stetson Library.

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Smiles 2 Go

by Melinda Tuhus | Jul 13, 2006 5:35 pm | Comments (0)

The Hospital of St. Raphael dental van parked outside the Columbus School in Fair Haven and drew patients like moths to a flame, though certainly with much happier consequences. Andres Chavez (pictured, in the chair) was just one of those who benefited, as the “Smiles 2 Go” van and its sponsor, People’s Bank, celebrated the program’s fifth anniversary.

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Day of Reckoning Coming for Hospital-Caused Illnesses

by Melinda Tuhus | Jul 13, 2006 9:18 am | Comments (0)

A new state law will require hospitals to report illnesses and deaths caused by hospital-induced infections, beginning in 2008. Think it’s not a problem? A 1999 report from the Institute of Medicine estimated 98,000 patients a year were dying in the U.S. due to medical errors, including infections — as many people as from AIDS, breast cancer and automobile accidents combined, and raising health care costs an additional $4.5 billion a year, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). In the hope of reducing those numbers, several states have since passed laws requiring hospitals to report such incidents. But before all that, Lowell Levin (pictured), a professor at the Yale School of Epidemiology and Public Health, was on the case with a 1985 book he co-authored called Medicine on Trial.

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Tough Love in Dixwell

by Allan Appel | Jul 10, 2006 9:46 am | Comments (1)

“Unfortunately a lot of you have seen bullets like these,” police officer Shafiq Abdusabbur told a room full of kids ages 9 to 16. “But you haven’t seen a bullet like this one,” he went on, delicately raising a smashed, disfigured cartridge. The 20 kids, some transfixed and others drowsing, suddenly all looked up. “This one went through a young human body just like yours. This one smashed into a chest. When a bullet goes through a body, it is hot, very hot, and it melts as it strikes. The story here is therefore that shooting is not cool at all, and getting shot is really not cool.”

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A Camp Respite—For Parents, Too

by Melinda Tuhus | Jul 7, 2006 10:27 am | Comments (1)

The volunteers who run Camp Totokett are getting ready for their 11th season at Killam’s Point in Branford, July 24-28. The 65 kids who come out for a week of day camp range in age from 6 to 15; they are mostly from New Haven and are mostly black and Latino. Their family members — parents, grandparents, aunts and uncles — are the faces of AIDS in the city. Some have died, and the rest have been living with the disease for many years, since effective treatment was introduced a decade ago.

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