Dr. Gail Newel made her final public appearance as Santa Cruz’s County health officer Thursday evening at a virtual event to discuss the current state of public health in the county. The topics were wide-ranging, from sexually transmitted diseases to opioids and housing.
Health & Wellness
Posted inPolitics & Policy
Why ‘crisis pregnancy centers’ will be California’s next abortion battleground
California legislators have passed a slew of laws to protect abortion rights. But after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, many fear attempting to regulate “crisis pregnancy centers” is legally risky.
Posted inEvents, Health & Wellness
Watsonville Community Hospital nurses protest staffing issues, virtual doctors, as contract negotiations begin
Nurses at Watsonville Community Hospital held a news conference Tuesday to highlight the departure of 42 nurses since new public ownership — Pajaro Valley Healthcare District — reduced the number of part-time positions available. They say they want a union contract with the district that addresses this and other daily challenges nurses face at the hospital.
Posted inOpinion from Community Voices
We all want to halt fentanyl-related opioids, but Panetta’s vote to criminalize would keep us in same loop of failure
Retired Santa Cruz physician Helen Nunberg spent decades treating people with addictions and can’t understand why Rep. Jimmy Panetta recently voted for the HALT Fentanyl Act. The act, she says, will lead to harsher criminal penalties for possession of small amounts of fentanyl-related drugs and makes the same mistakes we have been making for decades. “Obviously, what we are doing isn’t working,” she writes. She encourages you to write to your senators and keep President Joe Biden from signing it into law.
Posted inArts & Entertainment
In the Age of Doomscrolling, how do we find hope in the always-on drumbeat of bad news?
The central experience of our era is a constant, surround-sound, 24/7, weaponized and ruthlessly engineered sense of doom, Wallace Baine writes. And while every era has its crises, our internet addiction and algorithms aimed at keeping us doomscrolling puts an extraordinary, crushing psychic weight on all of us.
Posted inHealth & Wellness
Opioid overdoses hit their highest rate in more than a year in Santa Cruz County in May
Santa Cruz County recorded 101 opioid overdoses in May, spiking above the monthly average of 70 to 80 for the previous months of 2023. Santa Cruz County Deputy Health Officer Dr. David Ghilarducci points to a changing street drug supply as a possible culprit, as the county expects to see more than $20 million in opioid settlement funds over the next decade.
Posted inFood & Drink
Produce prescription program launches in Live Oak
Platos de Bienestar: Healthy Plates aims to make it easier for 60 patients of the Live Oak Health Center to get more fresh fruits and vegetables in their diets, and participants can fill that prescription at the Live Oak farmers market.
Posted inHealth & Wellness
California confronts the threat of ‘tranq’ as overdose crisis rages
California officials are stepping up efforts to combat the spread of xylazine, a powerful animal sedative that’s increasingly being used by people, often with devastating results. It’s mostly been an East Coast phenomenon, but “tranq,” as it is known, is beginning to appear in the Golden State.
Posted inOpinion from Community Voices
If toilet paper is free in dispensers, tampons should be, too: UCSC needs more period equity
Third-year student Amanda Safi wants UC Santa Cruz to pay more attention to menstruators. She is a period activist who was thrilled in December when the university started supplying free period products in bathrooms. It’s a great step, she writes, but the university should put the products in regularly serviced dispensers — just like toilet paper. And the products should be safe for users and for the environment, which they are currently not, she says. “Having period products in baskets when we put toilet paper in dispensers sends the message that menstruators are an afterthought,” Safi argues.
Posted inEducation
One of the biggest extinction events in the planet’s history is happening again — in Santa Cruz
Scientists are using a UC Santa Cruz greenhouse to recreate the mass extinction that wiped out the dinosaurs. They want to learn why some species survived when so many did not.