U.S. overdose deaths have exceeded 100,000 a year, yet few hospitals are equipped to treat patients with addiction. A new kind of treatment team connect patients with help before they're discharged.
Many rural counties in Georgia don’t have even one primary care physician. That’s a problem in a state that ranks near the bottom of the list in multiple health indicators. But as GPB’s Sofi Gratas reports, some residency programs in South and Middle Georgia have been successful in bringing doctors to places that don’t have enough providers.
Lawmakers are wrestling with how to bolster the state’s health care workforce that experts say has dwindled for a variety of reasons — from burnout under the crush of COVID to fewer students entering the field as older professionals retire.
The fourth surge of the coronavirus is subsiding in Georgia, but health care workers are exhausted, hospital leaders said Thursday during a panel at this year’s Health Connect South conference.
Last spring, nurses and doctors traveled to New York and other COVID-19 hot spots to help overwhelmed hospitals. But with the virus spreading everywhere, hospitals now have nowhere to turn for help.
