New Mexico Mercury

The suicide of elders and the middle-aged

Many of us, I’m sure, have had friends or acquaintances who’ve committed suicide.  And the longer we live, the ever more mysterious and frequent suicide seems to become in our experience – often to the point of grieving despair.  Those left behind inevitably search themselves for missed opportunities to have helped, misperceived clues that might have signaled a call for intervention, and failures of compassion that might have lifted someone’s burden just enough...

Insight New Mexico - Lance Chilton

V.B. Price talks with Lance Chilton, pediatrician and child advocate, about the importance of early childhood nutrition, its effects on intellectual development and the role of poverty on childhood health outcomes and unrealized potential.

Insight New Mexico - Nandini Kuehn

V.B. Price talks with Nandini Kuehn, Board President for New Mexico Health Connections, about the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare) and its impact on New Mexico. She explains the benefits, dispels myths and gives a thorough breakdown of how Obamacare is already operating in the state.

To repair or destroy

The Human Services Division (HSD) which funds Behavioral and Mental Health as well as Medicaid has concluded that 15 New Mexico Mental and Behavioral Health Services that have served their communities for decades have been so fraudulent on her watch that only the nuclear option was possible. She plans to shut them down and bring Arizona agencies to the rescue. HSD has no stomach apparently to fix our system if it’s broken, to build New Mexico capacity and grow New Mexico jobs. New Mexico tax revenues will ship off to Arizona. There should be no surprise that this is seen as part of a purely political agenda to privatize the not-for-profit mental health providers in the state...

Insight New Mexico - State Senator Jerry Ortiz y Pino

V.B. Price talks with State Senator Jerry Ortiz y Pino about the details of the recent behavioral health scandal that saw 15 non-profit providers defunded and 5 out-of-state for-profit companies awarded a short-term $18 million contract.

Paranoia

I see a plot in the New Mexico Medical Board's rule to make medicinal marijuana prescriptions hard to write for patients.  This is nothing but big pharma applying pressure to the Docs to make it hard to prescribe the low cost and effective herb to patients that qualify.  I mean if a few brownies take the place of outrageously expensive drugs then corporate profits will slide.   How much longer do we need to put up with this corporate manipulation of everything in our lives?   Am I being paranoid?  Or is having the munchies a threat to our way of life?...

World Breastfeeding Week and Support for All Mothers

Fostering a breastfeeding culture through education and support.

How We Feed Ourselves

A society's attitude towards food reflects not just physical health, but our social and emotional well-being.

New Mexico’s tempest in a teapot

The 15 New Mexico behavioral health provider organizations that have been accused of Medicaid fraud by their Human Services Department have been put in an impossible position. The state has tried them and found them guilty in the press and the patients they serve and the staff they employ are understandably frightened and angry.

The accused agencies have been defunded, meaning they are no longer reimbursed for providing care for the most vulnerable in their communities — persons with serious mental illnesses and substance use disorders. These persons, as well as the staff are worried, demoralized, and uncertain about the future. All as a result of a process that seems to be designed to deflect accountability from the state...

Fiddling and Fighting While Rome Burns

The state's most vulnerable citizens bear the brunt of the latest behavioral health dustup; one of many in a troubled saga.