Items

• 
  2020-05-01

  7 Health Insurance Questions, Answered

  A blog post from Banner Health about Medical Insurance.
• 
  2020-10-06

  「オンライン診療」コロナ禍特例→“恒常化”へ(2020年10月9日) - "Online diagnosis/check-up " Exception for Corona → To "normalized" (October 9, 2020)

  オンライン診療が初診から解禁される見通しです。 　オンライン診療は新型コロナウイルスの感染拡大を防ぐために現在、特例的に初診であっても認められています。田村厚生労働大臣は8日に平井デジタル改革大臣と河野規制改革大臣と会談し、感染の収束後も安全性と信頼性を確保したうえで、初診も含めてオンライン診療を認める方向で合意したということです。テレビ電話など映像があることが原則となります。オンライン診療を巡っては、医療の質に影響が出ると日本医師会が慎重な姿勢を示していました。 Online medical care/diagnosis is expected to be used from the first visit. Using online medical care/diagnosis for the first visit is currently only permitted for special instances to prevent the spread of the new coronavirus infection. Minister of Health, Labor and Welfare Tamura met with Minister of Digital Reform Hirai and Minister of Regulatory Reform Kono on the 8th, and agreed to allow online medical care including the first medical diagnosis after ensuring safety and reliability even after the infection has resolved. As a general rule, there should be camera and ways to do video calls. The Japan Medical Association has been cautious about online medical care, saying that it will affect the quality of medical care.
• 
  2020-08-05

  My Incarcerated Father & Our Family Face Discrimination At Top Bay Area Hospital

  A 74 year old man who was incarcerated in a medical facility was transferred to San Quentin in an effort to keep him away from Covid, but the botched transfer resulted in the opposite. He contracted Covid and was sent to a local hospital. While there the medical staff facilitated Zoom calls and the like with his family. After being transferred to the ICU the medical staff said because he was incarcerated they could not facilitate contact with his family. His daughter explains more.
• 
  2020-08-06

  Covid becoming a death sentence

  This is the image of a Tweet from a physician expressing her sorrow over the death of an incarcerated person and her belief that incarcerated persons with Covid deserve the same care as anyone else.
• 
  2020-08-01

  Coronavirus in Prison: The Cruel Reality

  This article from Prison Legal News gives an exhaustive overview of the situation faced by the carceral system and all the people it touches. The author, Christopher Zoukis, explains the state of the virus, news coverage, community response, covid in prisons, Federal Bureau of Prisons, state prisons, discrepancies in date, states responses, lack of testing, medical care, and PPE, the personal impact, and human rights.
• 
  2020-03-28

  OpEd from an ASD Mom

  As the general population contemplates their loss of physical freedom and financial uncertainty there is an entire population of people being overlooked- the disabled. As a mother of a teenage son on the autism spectrum I am struggling to help him navigate a new world that I myself can barely comprehend. The basic routine and structure that all ASD children need to thrive has all but disappeared. In its place is only chaos and uncertainty, with parents desperately trying to hold things together. On a normal day my son attends a non-public special needs school with primarily ASD students. That school is now closed for an undetermined amount of time. That school does not just provide a special educator but desperately needed occupational therapy, speech-language therapy and behavioral support. My son also receives various outpatient services, many of which he has attended with the same physicians for most of his life. But, for the public safety, those have now closed- so they have been taken from him as well. As we try to maneuver to telehealth to supplement some of those supports the overwhelming truth of it all is clear- I will now be his teacher, OT, SLP and behavioral therapist. I am a fierce mother, but I am but one woman. How will I balance the need to work with his need for structure and medical care? How can I be at all places at once, doing jobs I am unqualified for? And while I am trying to juggle all professions at once, when will I ever just be mom again? My son is afraid. He is uncertain. But the reality is that there is no way for me to truly make him understand. My only solace is the strong community of ASD parents that have rallied to try to bring some sense of normalcy back to daily life. Our children miss their friends. Friendships are not easy to come by for this community, particularly among neuro-typical peers. So, the friendships formed among this group, within this non-public school, are crucial to their mental/emotional well-being. We all know it and we are all worried. Our children are prone to depression and self-harm. How can we keep them from isolating and regressing in a situation where isolation is required? One parent offers daily Zoom meetings. Every day at 3:00pm. If we can get all of the children to join we can only hope that it will fill the void, and help them feel like they are not alone. But we are all we have. The truth is we are all alone. The services we rely on are gone. The teachers are gone. Our routines are in shambles and the world is crashing down around us. We all understand the seriousness. We all understand the why. But as the world now turns to meet the needs of the pandemic the needs of our disabled children lay in the balance unseen and unheard.