Is University Hospital public? Attorney general will decide; merger proposal raises question of church-state separation

Attorney General Jack Conway has been asked to decide "whether University Hospital is a public institution — an issue in the controversial plan to merge the University of Louisville’s main teaching hospital with two other health-care systems," Patrick Howington of The Courier-Journal reports.

ACLU of Kentucky and The Courier-Journal have appealed denials of of open-records requests they made to University Medical Center Inc., which does business as University Hospital. "UMC turned down both requests on grounds that it is a nonprofit corporation rather than a public agency and therefore isn’t subject to the act," Howington writes. An attorney general’s opinion on open records or open meetings has the force of law unless overturned in court.

Meanwhile, Howington also writes that "Some legal advocates and constitutional scholars say," citing court cases, that the hospital's "plan to follow Catholic health-care directives under a pending merger could violate the U.S. Constitution’s provision to keep state and religious matters separate." (Read more)

Some school districts say they can't afford new federal program to give free meals to all students

Many school districts are reportedly opting out of a new federal pilot program that provides free breakfast and lunch to all students attending schools where poverty rates are high. They say budget constraints, fear of losing other federal benefits, and the possiblity of having to raise taxes to maintain the program are keeping them from participating. Kentucky, Tennessee and Illinois were the three states chosen to implement the program first.

When the U. S. Department of Agriculture announced the Community Eligibility Program in March, officials called it a way to eliminate red tape for school districts and "make it easier for low-income students to receive meals in the National School Lunch and School Breakfast program." Districts would provide free meals to all students for four years, then claim reimbursement for them, as they do for students who already receive free or reduced meals, reports Heather Webb of the Salyersville Independent.

Webb reports that officials of the Magoffin County Schools officials said they are not participating because they want "see how the program works in the districts that do participate." The reimbursement rate outlined in the program is less than normal rates, and in the county, it would cause the current rate of 86 percent to drop to 47 percent.

Of Kentucky's 174 school districts, 102 are eligible for the program. However, only 18 of those eligible districts are participating, The Licking Valley Courier (which is not online) reported in its Aug. 11 edition. It said the Morgan County Schools declined to take part because they would have to pay 25 percent of the cost and feared they might have to raise taxes to cover that.

Bailey Richards of the Hazard Herald reported that schools who do not have more than 60 percent of their students receiving free or reduced lunch can still participate in the program, but the respective school boards will have to pay the difference to cover all students. Perry County Schools Food Service Coordinator Linda Campbell told Richards her district could not afford to pay that difference, which would amount to about $300,000 a year out of its general fund.

Hazard Independent Schools Supt. Sandra Johnson told the Herald that she feared her district would lose funding from other government programs, like Title I and Family Resource Centers, which depend on the exact number of students receiving free meals, if they could no longer keep track of those numbers.

Eastern Ky. jumps on national gardening bandwagon, big time

In response to the downturn of the economy, people in Morgan County and the rest of Eastern Kentucky have turned to their roots — getting down in the dirt and growing a vegetable garden, reports Sabrina Tavernise of the New York Times. The offshoot is that people can improve their health by increasing fruit and vegetable consumption. (Times photo by Luke Sharrett)

Vegetable gardening has been on the rise nationally since 2008, which was around the time when Lehman Brothers collapsed, starting the turmoil ion the nation's financial system. "Our sales have skyrocketed," said George Ball, chief executive of Burpee, one of the country's major vegetable seed retailers.

Unlike in urban centers, where buying locally grown vegetables often comes with a exorbitant price tag, eating in rural areas is usually cheaper. Teacher Rebecca Frazier said she "she had cut her food bill in half by growing her own and preserving and by buying in bulk from local farmers," Tavernise reports.

Timothy Woods, professor of agricultural economics at the University of Kentucky, said the number of farmers' markets in Eastern Kentucky has doubled since 2004. "You won't see certified organic products or any fancy marketing" seen in urban areas, he said. "It's a very different world."

Sarah G. Fannin, on ground in photo, is an agriculture educator for UK's Cooperative Extension Service. She said the service has fielded twice the number of calls from people who are asking for gardening help in the past three years. "Ten years ago, we hadn't really been thinking about where our food was coming from other than the drive-through or the grocery store," she said. "Now there's more concern."

Though Tavernise points out gardening does not necessarily lead to improved health, Bridget C. Booske, a senior scientist at the University of Wisconsin Population Health Institute, said County Health Rankings show Morgan County people are living longer and a smaller number of babies are born underweight. Obesity and diabetes rates remain high, however, and locals believe those rates won't significantly improve until there are more jobs and less poverty in the area.

But to create another source of income, Fannin is urging farmers to turn to gardening. The first time Robert Bradley, a former coal miner who turned to farming, planted sweet potatoes, he doubted the effort. But they grew so well, it was has prompted other farmers to try it out too. (Read more)

Frontier Nursing Service sells Mary Breckinridge Hospital to Appalachian Regional Healthcare

Following the nationwide trend of independent hospitals joining larger organizations in order to stay viable, and ending an era, Hyden's Mary Breckinridge Hospital has been acquired by Appalachian Regional Healthcare.

The hospital was sold by the Frontier Nursing Service, which was founded in 1925 by Mary Breckinridge, whos eefforts greatly reduced infant mortality in the area. The hospital employs 150 people and will now be called Mary Breckinridge ARH Hospital, The Associated Press reports.

ARH President and CEO Jerry Haynes said the health system hopes to enhance health-care services in Leslie County. It is the 10th hospital in the Central Appalachian network, which began with takeover of United Mine Workers hospitals about 40 years ago. (Read more)

U of L prof earns $11.8 million grant renewal; has helped glean $100 million in federal grants in 17 years

A University of Louisville researcher has been awarded a $12.8 million grant to keep his adult stem cell project going.

The funds are from the National Institutes of Health and will allow Dr. Roberto Bolli, right, to continue to investigate how introducing genes into stem cells might improve stem-cell therapies; look at how diabetes affects stem cells; look at how proteins called cytokines affect stem cells during heart failure; and investigate the signaling pathways of stem cells in the body.

Bolli's project was granted $11.7 million in 2006. Since Bolli started working at U of L in 1994, he and his team have brought in more than $100 million in NIH grants. In one project, patients have reached the two-year mark after being infused with their own processed adult stem cells. That project is looking to find a way to use a patient's own cardiac stem cells to regenerate dead heart muscle after a heart attack.

"U of L has a mandate to become a national recognized metropolitan research university," President James Ramsey said. "One gauge is our faculty's ability to attract competitive grant fund from the NIH." Ramsey said the overall mission of the medical school is to improve the health of Kentuckians.

Opinions on health and safety issues differ among regions in Ky.

New data show Kentuckians' views on several major health-related issues vary depending on where they live. Those in Eastern Kentucky, the area with the highest poverty rate, are more likely to worry about having the money to pay for nutritious meals. They also have less access to affordable fruit and vegetables, and have a harder time finding safe places to exercise.

The data were compiled through the Kentucky Health Issues Poll, which was conducted by the Institute for Policy Research at the University of Cincinnati. It surveyed more than 1,600 Kentuckians selected at random.

Views on smoking also differ by region. People in Northern Kentucky are less likely to support a statewide smoking ban, while people in the greater Louisville area tend to be more in favor of it. The views reflect local smoking bans that are already in effect; Louisville has banned smoking in public places since 2008, but the movement has stalled in Northern Kentucky.

Northern Kentuckians are also less likely to support legislation that would ban cell phone use while driving. People living in Kentucky's two largest urban centers, Louisville and Lexington, are more likely to use their cell phones while driving. People in Lexington said they're more like to talk, text or send emails on their phones when behind the wheel, while people in Louisville are only more likely to talk. People in Eastern Kentucky are the least likely group to talk or text on a cell phone when operating a vehicle.

Almost 3 in 4 respondents said they would support a complete ban on cell phone use while driving. Nearly as many said they need more information in order to understand the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, the federal health-reform law.

The poll is jointly funded by the Foundation for a Healthy Kentucky and The Health Foundation of Greater Cincinnati. (Read more)

Stomach Pain (Symptoms, Causes and Solutions)

It is a disease that is often suffered by many people in the world. Some of the things below to distinguish the type of abdominal pain that experience in terms of symptoms, then the first step to overcome them. Of course, in cases serious they need the help of expertos-médicos next to his house.

Then, what you should do?

1. Ulcer

Symptoms: Pain in uluhati of Regional, along with other complaints such as nausea, vomiting, abdominal bloating, early satiety, and belching, especially when you are hungry.

Cause: Various. Could be due to food, especially foods containing gas such as cabbage, sweet potatoes, and mustard greens. Or it could be caused by beverages such as coffee, alcohol, and soda. In addition to dietary factors, ulcers can be connecting it by a factor of stress, smoking, and consumption of drugs painkillers including rheumatic drugs.

Solution: Actually medications that contain antacids antimaag enough to overcome the symptoms. These antacids work to neutralize stomach acid. But if the pain was not reduced, perhaps you need to make an appointment with the doctor. Do not forget, reduce foods that can interfere with the performance of gastric-food that is too acidic or too spicy. And from now on, eat regularly.

2. Gallstone

Symptoms: Those who have stones in the gallbladder usually feel heartburn is intermittent. Sometimes, the pain seemed to spread to the back of the body.

Cause: Fatty foods or can be associated with cholesterol levels that are too high. Gallstones are deposits of cholesterol, bilirubin, or other calcium salts that form in the gallbladder or nearby bile ducts.

Solution: If the doctor's examination-that is with abdominal ultrasound, the confirmed presence of stones in the gallbladder, then you should have surgery. Moreover, if the stone was calcium stones or non-calcium stones are already enlarged and hardened. How else?

3. Appendicitis

Symptoms: Pain in lower right abdomen. Usually accompanied by nausea and vomiting, and persistent pain. Sometimes, the pain will increase to three times when you must walk. Your body will feel uncomfortable and feverish. Due to extreme pain, sometimes you unconscious to continue holding the right lower abdomen while ... groan.

Cause: germs or bacteria that enter. So if you think the cause is due to eating too much chili or seeds, you consumed myths.

Solution: If you experience symptoms of abdominal pain in the lower right, get to the doctor. Verify whether this phenomenon is an infection of the appendix (acute appendicitis). If so, perhaps you should stay in the hospital for surgery. Surgery is the best way because if this problem taken any action, then there is the possibility of intestinal rupture, spreading infection throughout the abdomen, the result is fatal.

4. CHOLERA

Symptoms: Your stomach is like a button, feel pain, especially in the lower abdomen, followed by abdominal muscle spasm. Nausea and vomiting usually come after the diarrhea. Cholera is often also called vomiting disease because its main symptoms are vomiting and bowel movements.

Cause: Vibrio cholerae bacteria that have the name of another alias iBacillus coma. Germs are spread through contaminated food and beverages.

Solution: antibiotics online Replace lost fluids with oral rehydration salts. When you lose quite a lot of body fluids and the patient was not able to receive fluid from the mouth, so fluid replacement is given intravenously.

5. KIDNEY STONES


Symptoms: Pain in left or right lower abdomen that radiates to the penis. If this kidney stone attack, you probably will experience tremendous pain due to severe urinary tract (which is similar to the hose) will be stretched due to strong hold urine that can not get out.

Cause: The stone in the urinary tract (ureter stones). Intermittent pain that is felt and the intensity of the pain will be increasingly great when you are dying for a pee.

Solution: Actually painkillers counter can be taken to reduce the pain. But of course it depends on the intensity of her pain, if too great ... Just let go. Going to the doctor is a smart move to get a painkiller that is usually given by injection. Or if the stone is too large and hard, then the operating procedures adopted to solve the problem. This is the lesson that you diligently take-especially if you work in air-conditioned room.

6. Constipation

Symptoms: Pain in the abdomen that intermittent, located around the navel. This pain appears to be related to the food you eat or due to constipation.

Cause: Due to too many foods high in fat and eat less vegetables. In severe cases, constipation can be caused due to mechanical obstruction of the intestine such as inflammation of the intestinal wall, cancer, or colon that bulge outward.

Solution: Take laxatives. Fit to cause constipation, if its cause your stools are too hard to buy a stool softening laxatives, or choose a laxative that makes the digestive tract was full, causing the stimulus for a bowel movement, or choose a laxative that can absorb the liquid.

7. Dysentery

Symptoms: Pain mulasnya probably about the same as your wife about to give birth. Which makes you upset had to commute to the toilet for bowel movements. One day maybe you can be 20 to 30 times a bowel movement, and the dirt you will loose stools and mucus. Sometimes, the dirt was accompanied by blood.

Cause: Consumption of foods that have been infected with germs dirty shigela dissentri or intestinal amoebae.

Solution: To treat it, first you need to replace the fluid that has come out with rehydration salts. Antibiotics are very important to kill germs. But still, prevention is more important than treatment. The trick is to keep clean, exterminate flies in the house, as well as keeping food and beverages from the dirt.

The Amazing Benefits of Water

Approximately 80% of the human body consists of water. Brain and blood are the two most important organs that have a moisture content of more than 80%. The brain has a component of the water by up to 90%, while the water from the blood component has a 95%.
At least 2 liters are normally needed day or 8 cups a day. For smokers than the figure increases by half. Water is necessary to replace the fluid that leaves the body through the urine, perspiration, breathing and secretion. Doctors also are recommended consume 8-10 glasses of water every day so that your metabolism is working well and normal. Less water, risk for blood if we consume less than 8 vessels, the overall effect does not feel. However, as a consequence, the body balances through the adoption of the source of the components of the own body. Between the blood. The lack of water to ensure that blood is very dangerous to the body. Therefore, the blood is thick. As a result, the voyage of the blood to carry oxygen and nutrients may be affected. Blood is thicker to it will also pass through the kidney that functions as a filter or a tool to remove the toxins from the blood. The kidneys have a very fine sieve, so if you have that filter blood thick is after the kidneys must work harder.
It is not possible kidney could be damaged and the dialysis time or medical language called hemodialysis.This influence is less water than blood and kidneys function. And what happens to the brain? Blood is thicker travel will also be hampered in its passage through the brain. In fact, the brain cells are the most wasteful consumption of food and oxygen is transported by blood.
So the function of the cells in the brain is not functioning optimally, and can even die quickly. These terms and conditions each time will lead to a stroke. Therefore, don't let the lack of water!
Benefits of Water

1. Streamlining the digestive system

Consuming adequate amounts of water every day will facilitate the digestive system so that we will avoid digestive problems such as ulcers or constipation. The burning of calories will also be run efficiently.

2. Water helps to slow the growth of the cancer-causing substances, plus prevent kidney stones and heart disease. Drinking water will make the body more energy.

3. Beauty treatments

When we drink less water, the body will absorb the water content in the skin so the skin becomes dry and wrinkled. In addition, water can protect the skin from the outside, as well as moisturize and nourish the skin. To maintain the beauty of anything, cleaning the body Hares really be considered, plus a glass of water 8-10 glasses a day.

4. For fertility

Increasing testosterone production in men and estrogen in the study of bacilli, a thrombosis research institute in London, England, if someone always showered with cold water then circulation and body feels fresh and fit. Bathing with cold water will increase production of white blood cells in the body and increase a person's ability to attack the virus. In fact, cold showers in the morning can increase the testosterone production in men and estrogen in women. With so fertility and sexual excitement will increase. Also improves skin tissue, nails healthier and stronger, not easily cracked. Well, for a lazy morning shower or even a lazy bath should begin to change his habit.

5. Heart healthy

Water is also believed to participate cure heart disease, rheumatism, skin breakdown, Papas tract disease, intestinal disease dap femininity, etc. Today is pretty much the efficacy of alternative treatment that uses water.

6. As a stroke drug

Hot water not only used to treat various skin diseases, but also effective for treating paralysis, such as stroke. Therefore, the water can help strengthen back muscles and ligaments as well as expedite the circulatory system and respiratory system. Effect of heat causes dilation of blood vessels, improving blood circulation and tissue oxygenation, thus preventing muscle stiffness, relieve pain and soothe the mind. The content of ions, especially chlorine, magnesium, hydrogen carbonate and sulfate in hot water, helps the dilation of blood vessels thus increasing blood circulation. In addition the pH of the water is able to sterilize the skin.

7. Relaxation effect

Try standing in the shower and feel the effect in the body. Shower water that falls into the body feels like a massage and be able to eliminate fatigue because it feels like a massage. Some alternative medicine experts say, that come into contact with a fountain, a walk around the waterfall, or river and park with many fountains, will acquire the properties of negative ions. Negative ions which arise due to water droplets collide it can relieve pain, neutralize toxins, combat disease, and help to absorb and utilize oxygen. Negative ions in the blood flow will accelerate the delivery of oxygen to the cells and tissues. Not only that if you experience muscle tension can be relieved with a warm water bath temperature about 37 degrees C. While our aching feet are often recommended to soak the feet with warm water mixed with a little salt. If you have a shower at home try to bathe and enjoy the results. Oh yes, the shower at home also produces negative ions.

8. Thin body

Water is also removes impurities in the body that will be faster out through urine. For those who want to slim down the body too, drink warm water before eating (making it feel somewhat satisfied) is one way to reduce the amount of food intake. Moreover the water contains no calories, sugar, or fat. However, it is best to drink water at medium temperature, not too hot, nor too cold. Want skinny or healthy diet? drinking water only.

9. Fitter body

Efficacy of water not only to cleanse the body, but also as a substance that our bodies need. We may be better able to survive food shortages a few days less than water. Therefore, water is a major part in the composition of the human body. The amount of water decreases in the body, the function of organs will also be decreased and more easily disturbed by bacteria, viruses, etc.. However, the human body has a mechanism in maintaining the balance of the incoming water intake and expenditure. Thirst was on everyone is a normal mechanism in maintaining the water intake in the body. Water bodies require approximately 2 to 2.5 l (8-10 cups) per day. Total water demand is already included water intake from food (such as soup, soup, etc.), beverages such as milk, tea, coffee, syrups etc.. In addition, water intake was also obtained from the metabolism of food consumed and tissue metabolism in the body.



Well, water is also released by the body through urine and sweat. The amount of water released by the body through the urine of about 1 liter per day. If the number of stools in healthy people who spent about 50 - 400 g / day, other content of about 60-90% weight of stools or about 50-60 ml of water a day.



Meanwhile, water is wasted through sweating and respiratory tract in a maximum of 1 liter per day, depending on the temperature of the surrounding air. Not to mention the expenditure of factors of water through breathing. Someone who has a fever, the water content in the breath will increase. Conversely, the amount of water that is inhaled through the breathing air is reduced due to low humidity environs.



Keep in mind, the more activity then the more water is drained from the body. For that reason, health experts warn not to drink only when thirsty habits much to drink, whether it is hungry or not, is a healthy habit!