<div>In the aftermath of hurricane Helene, North Carolinians struggle to fulfill their health care needs, volunteers from other states arrive to help. Also: more environmental stories and the challenges faced by rising heat and storms across the country.Dozens of volunteer doctors, nurses and psychologists traveled to the region to treat people whose routines, including medical appointments, were disrupted by the storm. (Cochrane, 10/28) HCA Healthcare plans to continue investing in hurricane-prone areas despite the hundreds of millions of dollars in damage sustained at its facilities due to Hurricanes Helene and Milton. "If you would have asked me what two communities were most impacted, I would have never said in 100 years Augusta, Georgia, and Asheville, North Carolina," said Sam Hazen, HCA CEO, during a third-quarter earnings call Friday with financial analysts. (DeSilva, 10/25) Patricia Murray sat in her home office toward the end of a weeklong heat wave, the third for the year with temperatures exceeding 90 degrees, describing how she keeps cool without air conditioning even as Durham’s summers get progressively hotter. “When I know I’m going out in the afternoon, I’ll wring out [a towel] and put it around my neck,” said the spry 68-year-old, who also uses box fans and ceiling fans to push cooling breezes through her home. “I suggest if you don’t have air conditioning, that’s a lifesaver — got to have a ceiling fan.” (Atwater and Newsome, 10/28) The body’s cooling defenses fail at lower “wet bulb” temperatures than scientists had estimated. (Dalton, 10/25) On a sweltering afternoon in July 2020, Belinda Ramones got a call that her brother was in the hospital. The call was from a woman at the Florida landscaping business that he had joined that week, the Davey Tree Expert Co., Ramones said. By the time she arrived, she said, “My brother was swollen up from hands to toes.” Two days later, her brother, Jose Leandro-Barrera, died at age 45 with acute kidney failure caused by heatstroke, according to a report from the Hillsborough County medical examiner. His temperature in the ambulance had been 108 F, said the report. (Maxmen, 10/28) Also —Gas stoves in European homes are associated with tens of thousands of premature deaths, a study has found. Nearly 40,000 early deaths each year in the EU and UK can be linked to exposure to nitrogen dioxide from burning gas for cooking indoors, a study by scientists at Jaume I University in Spain has found, the first such estimate for Europe. The stoves were also associated with hundreds of thousands of pediatric asthma cases in the EU and UK, the study estimated. (Rudgard, 10/28) This is part of the Morning Briefing, a summary of health policy coverage from major news organizations. Sign up for an email subscription. </div>

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Health Care Access Hampered By Helene

In the aftermath of hurricane Helene, North Carolinians struggle to fulfill their health care needs, volunteers from other states arrive to help. Also: more environmental stories and the challenges faced by rising heat and storms across the country. Dozens of volunteer doctors, nurses and psychologists traveled to the region to...

Health Care Access Hampered By Helene

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