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Conversations on Health Care hosts Mark Masselli and Margaret Flinter ask him about efforts to build public awareness and support for those with mental health issues.
The Atlantic staff writer Ed Yong says the threat of future pandemics requires society to aggressively face and fix racial, economic and health disparities.
Former White House Coronavirus Response Coordinator Dr. Deborah Birx shared her perspective about Vice President Kamala Harris testing positive for COVID with “Conversations on Health Care.”
Conversations on Health Care hosts Mark Masselli and Margaret Flinter talk exclusively to Jane about this work and with Marc Hackett, CEO of the Jane Pauley Community Health Center.
Conversations on Health Care hosts Mark Masselli and Margaret Flinter’s full interview with Dr. Wachter is available now.
Conversations on Health Care hosts Mark Masselli and Margaret Flinter also asked Dr. Benjamin about the reorganization plans for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention; he says it needs a greater focus on emergency preparedness.
CMS Administrator Chiquita Brooks-LaSure discusses President Biden’s increased health budget proposal for the US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) and the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), which is focused on health equity, mental health parity, and nursing home safety as key goals in the coming year.
Dr. Voloshyna tells Conversations on Health Care hosts Mark Masselli and Margaret Flinter that she and her daughter had to sleep on the subway station floor for a week, and their lives are still interrupted by air sirens. She says the Russians have “criminally interrupted” the Ukrainian way of life.
Conversations on Health Care hosts Mark Masselli and Margaret Flinter welcome Project HOPE’s CEO Rabih Torbay and Director of Emergency Response and Preparedness Tom Cotter, who joined the show from the field in Bucharest, Romania. They share the daunting task of providing extensive support and local training to the existing medical infrastructure in handling both the destruction of medical facilities within Ukraine and the millions of refugees in need of medical and behavioral health services as they arrive in neighboring countries. “These people have all experienced trauma,” Cotter said. They are training local laypersons in Psychological First Aid techniques to help the refugees transition to safety. Project HOPE is also keeping supply lines going into Ukraine with desperately needed medical supplies. “Even if this conflict ended tomorrow, the destruction will take years to rebuild,” Torbay said. They expect to be assisting in the region for a long time. And they continue to provide medical support in 30 countries around the world dealing with COVID-19, famine, and military conflict, with a particular focus on women and children’s health.
This week Dr. Joia Mukherjee, the Chief Medical Officer of Partners in Health, shares memories with Conversations on Health Care hosts Mark Masselli and Margaret Flinter. She explains how the nonprofit’s focus will remain on community health in the countries it serves.
The whole world is watching as Russian troops advance in Ukraine and brave medical professionals are on duty throughout the crisis. One of them is Dr. Kateryna Pochtar, who shares her chilling description of how she and her colleagues are trying to help patients in their clinic. Dr. Pochtar explains how patients are crying in her arms as her life consists of just work, hiding and sleep. She tells Conversations on Health Care hosts Mark Masselli and Margaret Flinter that some patients are afraid to seek medical care because they worry they’ll be trapped outside during an air alarm.
Dr. Mary Bassett, New York State Commissioner of Health, says the COVID Omicron variant is still exposing health inequities — African Americans in New York have been hospitalized twice as much as the majority population during this latest wave. Bassett says achieving health equity “will be the North Star of my working life as a physician committed to public health.” Bassett also tells Conversations on Health Care hosts Mark Masselli and Margaret Flinter that the state has four times as many hospitalized now compared to the pandemic lull last summer. Yet she also notes the hospitalization and case rates are going down.
This week, hosts Mark Masselli and Margaret Flinter welcome Dr. Anthony Fauci back to the show, two years after his first appearance discussing the novel coronavirus spreading around the world. The Chief Medical Advisor to the Biden White House and long-time Director of the National Institute for Allergy and Infectious Diseases at the NIH expressed concern over the ongoing political divisiveness impacting our ability to contain COVID outbreaks leading to almost 1 million deaths in this country. He says FDA approval of the mRNA vaccine for young children will likely come on the heels of better data on efficacy with a third dose. He still marvels at the dramatic scientific achievement of the swift development and deployment of an effective vaccine against a challenging new pathogen, which he said would not have happened without decades of committing our resources to scientific research.
Dr. Cameron Webb, White House Senior Policy Adviser for COVID-19 Equity, is navigating a tricky situation — as he advocates for vaccines, the university where he works just dropped its student vaccine mandate. Webb tells Conversations on Health Care hosts Mark Masselli and Margaret Flinter that he realizes the University of Virginia has some new dynamics to navigate. “There’s this rush to roll back a lot of the strategies that have gotten us to a point where we’re seeing less death,” he says. “This pandemic has been politicized to a point that it’s indistinguishable from the rest of our political rhetoric…rhetoric often meant to motivate a voter base.” Webb also discusses the administration’s efforts to address COVID equity issues, including the need to collect better data about race and ethnicity vaccination rates.
Mark Masselli is the President/CEO of Community Health Center, Inc., Connecticut’s largest and most comprehensive provider of primary health care services for the uninsured and underserved. CHC is located in over 203 cities throughout Connecticut – serving 145,000 patients statewide. Providing medical, dental and behavioral health services, CHC is a nationally recognized innovator in the delivery and the development of primary care services to special populations.
Mark has played an important leadership role as a founding member of many health and human services initiatives in Middletown, including New Horizons Battered Women’s Shelter, Nehemiah Housing Corporation, and Oddfellows Youth Playhouse. In addition to local issues, Mark has worked on a range of international human rights issues. He has worked with His Holiness the Dalai Lama and has traveled in Tibet, Nepal, India and China working on the issues facing the Tibetan people. He also was active in the development of the Bishop Tutu Refugee relief agency during the critical years fighting the apartheid system in South Africa. Mark was honored with a Doctorate of Humane Letters by Wesleyan University in 2009 for his work in the Health Care field.
Margaret Flinter is Senior Vice President and Clinical Director of the Community Health Center, Inc. and is a family nurse practitioner by profession. Margaret earned her Bachelor’s Degree in Nursing from the University of Connecticut, her Master’s Degree from Yale University, and her doctoral degree at the University of Connecticut. She was the recipient of a Robert Wood Johnson Executive Nurse Fellowship from 2002-2005.
Following her graduate training at Yale University, Margaret joined the Community Health Center in 1980 as a National Health Service Corps Scholar and CHC’s first nurse practitioner. Since 1987 she has held both clinical and administrative leadership roles in the organization. She recently established the Weitzman Center for Innovation in Community Health and Primary Care as the “research and development” arm of CHC and serves as the Director of the Weitzman Center. Margaret is also the founder of America’s first Nurse practitioner residency program which operates out of the Community Health Center.