Health and Wellness

Most black hospitals in the South closed long ago. Their impact continues

Published

3 months ago

August 16, 2024

IAM

Black Hospitals, historically Black Hospitals, Black Hospitals in the South, Southern Black Hospitals, closed Black Hospitals, What was the first Black hospital, Black health, Black healthcare, Black health care, theGrio.com

MOUND BAYOU, Miss. — In the center of this historically black town once considered the “jewel of the Delta” by President Theodore Roosevelt, dreams of revitalizing an abandoned hospital constructing have all but dried up.

An Art Deco sign still marks the important entrance, but the front doors are locked and the car parking zone is empty. Today, the food market across North Edwards Avenue is far busier than the old Taborian Hospital, which closed greater than 40 years ago.

Myrna Smith-Thompson, executive director of the civic organization that owns the property, lives 100 miles away in Memphis, Tennessee, and doesn’t know what’s going to occur to the decaying constructing.

“I’m open to suggestions,” said Smith-Thompson, whose grandfather led a black fraternal organization now called the Knights and Daughters of Tabor. In 1942, the group founded Taborian Hospital, a facility staffed by black doctors and nurses that saw only black patients at a time when Jim Crow laws barred them from the same health care facilities as white patients.

“It’s a very painful conversation to have,” said Smith-Thompson, who was born at Taborian Hospital in 1949. “It’s part of my being.”

An identical scenario has played out in a whole lot of other rural communities across the United States, where hospitals faced closure for the past 40 years. In this respect, the history of Mound Bayou Hospital is just not unique.

But historians say the hospital’s closure is about greater than just the lack of patient beds. It’s also a story about how a whole lot of black hospitals across the U.S. fell victim to social progress.

The Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the enactment of Medicare and Medicaid in 1965 brought advantages to hundreds of thousands of individuals. The federal campaign to desegregate hospitals that ended 1969 court case of Charleston, South Carolina, guaranteed black patients in the South access to the same health care facilities as white patients. Black doctors and nurses were now not barred from training or practicing medicine in white hospitals. However, the end of legal racial segregation hastened the decline of many black hospitals, which had been a serious source of employment and a middle of pride for black Americans.

“And not just for doctors,” said Vanessa Northington Gamble, a physician and historian at George Washington University. “It was social institutions, financial institutions, and medical institutions.”

In Charleston, the historically black hospital on Cannon Street began publishing a monthly in 1899 called The Hospital Herald, which focused on hospital work and public hygiene, amongst other topics. When Kansas City, Missouri, opened a hospital for black patients in 1918, people held a parade. Taborian Hospital in Mound Bayou featured two operating rooms and state-of-the-art equipment. It was also where the famous civil rights activist Fannie Lou Hamer died in 1977.

“There were Swedish hospitals. There were Jewish hospitals. There were Catholic hospitals. That’s part of the history, too,” said Gamble, creator of “Making a Place for Ourselves: The Black Hospital Movement, 1920-1945.”

“But racism in medicine was a major reason for creating hospitals for black people,” she said.

Gamble estimated that by the early Nineteen Nineties there have been only eight left.

“It has a domino effect on the fabric of the community,” said Bizu Gelaye, an epidemiologist and program director of the Mississippi Delta Partnership in Public Health at Harvard University.

The researchers concluded that hospital desegregation improved the long-term health of black patients.

Taborian Hospital in Mound Bayou, Mississippi, was founded exclusively to treat black patients at a time when Jim Crow laws barred them from the same health care facilities as white patients. But its closure in 1983 underscores how a whole lot of black hospitals across the U.S. have fallen victim to social progress. (Lauren Sausser/KFF Health News)

One 2009 study, automotive crashes in Mississippi in the Sixties and Seventies, found that blacks were less more likely to die after hospitals were desegregated. They could get to hospitals closer to the scene of a crash, reducing the distance they might otherwise must travel by about 50 miles.

Some infant mortality evaluationpublished in 2006 by economists at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, found that desegregating hospitals in the South helped significantly close the mortality gap between black and white infants. That’s partly because black infants with illnesses like diarrhea and pneumonia had higher access to hospitals, the researchers found.

A brand new evaluation, recently accepted for publication in the Review of Economics and Statistics, suggests that racism continued to harm the health of black patients in the years after hospital integration. White hospitals were forced to integrate starting in the mid-Sixties in the event that they desired to receive Medicare funding. But they didn’t necessarily provide the same quality of care to black and white patients, said Mark Anderson, an economics professor at Montana State University and a co-author of the paper. His evaluation found that hospital desegregation had “little, if any, effect on black infant mortality” in the South between 1959 and 1973.

Nearly 3,000 babies were born at Taborian Hospital before it closed in 1983. The constructing sat empty for many years until 10 years ago, when a $3 million federal grant helped renovate the facility and switch it right into a short-term acute care facility. It closed again only a yr later amid a legal battle over its ownership, Smith-Thompson said, and has been deteriorating ever since.

“We would need at least millions, probably,” she said, estimating the cost of reopening the constructing. “We’re in the same place now as we were before the renovation.”

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In 2000, the hospital was listed as considered one of Mississippi’s most endangered historic sites by the Mississippi Heritage Trust. As a result, some would really like to see it reopened in a way that can ensure its survival as a very important historic site.

Hermon Johnson Jr., director of the Mound Bayou Museum, who was born at Taborian Hospital in 1956, suggested the constructing may very well be used as a gathering space or museum. “It would be a huge boost for the community,” he said.

Meanwhile, most of the hospital’s former patients have died or left Mound Bayou. The town’s population has fallen by about half since 1980, based on U.S. Census Bureau data. Bolivar County is amongst the poorest in the country, and life expectancy is a decade lower than the national average.

There remains to be a sanatorium in Mound Bayou, but the closest hospital is in Cleveland, Mississippi, a 15-minute drive away.

Mound Bayou Mayor Leighton Aldridge, a board member of the Knights and Daughters of Tabor, said he would really like to see Taborian Hospital remain a health care facility, suggesting it may very well be considered for a brand new children’s hospital or rehabilitation center.

“We need to put something back in there as soon as possible,” he said.

Smith-Thompson agreed and said the situation is urgent. “The health care services available to people in the Mississippi Delta are deplorable,” she said. “People are really, really sick.”

KFF Health News is a national newsroom that produces in-depth health journalism and is considered one of the important operating programs of KFF, an independent source of health policy research, polling and journalism. Learn more about KFF.

This article was originally published on : thegrio.com

Health and Wellness

Telling Our Stories: How StoryCorps and the Jordan Brand Will Amplify Black Voices with the Brightness in Black Initiative – Essence

Published

6 hours ago

November 25, 2024

StorCorps

StoryCorpsa national nonprofit organization dedicated to elevating the voices of on a regular basis people has launched a groundbreaking latest initiative, “Brightness in Black.” This three-yr project, in partnership with Michael Jordan and Jordan Brand’s Black Community Commitment, goals to spotlight Black stories in a way that shifts the narrative and celebrates the joy and diverse richness of Black life.

To dig deeper into this multi-yr initiative, ESSENCE sat down StoryCorps CEO Sandra Clark. She emphasized that Brightness in Black goes beyond traditional storytelling and seeks to alter the way black stories are told and received. Launched in September, the project launched in Philadelphia and Atlanta – two cities deeply rooted in black culture and history.

Clark began by emphasizing that Light in the Black is rooted in StoryCorps’ core mission – empowering people to inform their very own stories in their very own voices. “StoryCorps has traveled across the country over the last 20 years, collecting stories from everyday people. And what we know about these stories is that when people can tell their own stories in their own voices about what is most important to them… they become a legacy,” Clark said. “These stories combined together constitute the true history of America.”

As Clark explained, this initiative will not be nearly documenting experiences; it’s about addressing oversimplified and often negative narratives about Black life. “Our stories are often oversimplified. The narratives about our lives are often very limited,” she said, reflecting on how Black communities are typically portrayed in the media. Brightness in Black is a probability to flip the script – to give attention to the nuances, joys and aspirations that are not all the time at the focus.

Brightness in Black officially premiered in Philadelphia and Atlanta in September, and Clark explained that the alternative wasn’t nearly demographics; it was about history, community strength and local partnerships. “These cities have such a rich Black history, and the people here are no strangers to working to change the narrative,” Clark said.

StoryCorps doesn’t just parachute in and ask people to inform their stories. Clark explained that the project relies heavily on collaboration with community organizations, creators and educators in these cities. “We work with local partners — organizations and educators who have been doing this work for a long time. They understand the power of storytelling and the importance of capturing the full scope of Black life,” she said.

Through partnerships with HBCUs, community organizations and local creators, Brightness in Black will launch with storytelling events, recording sessions and workshops designed to have interaction each individuals and larger communities. “It’s not just about coming in, recording a story and leaving,” Clark explained. “We are creating connections by working with local leaders to ensure this initiative is deeply rooted in communities.”

One of the key pillars of the initiative is changing the typical narrative specializing in combat. Clark said that while difficult elements of the Black experience can’t be ignored, there may be also way more that needs attention.

“We as Black people are used to telling our stories, starting with trauma, hardship and hardship. And while these experiences are certainly part of our lives, there is much more to our story. Brightness in Black gives us a space to talk about our dreams, aspirations and the joys of everyday life. We want to focus on the greatness of Black life in all its forms,” Clark said.

The initiative includes in-person and virtual opportunities to share your stories through the StoryCorps app, community storytelling sessions, and StoryCorps Connect, which allows friends and family to record conversations from anywhere.

Black Joy and Black Fatherhood are examples of the stories Clark desires to amplify through this initiative. So what happens to all these powerful stories once they’re shared? The recordings collected during the three-yr initiative shall be archived at the Library of Congress, making these stories a part of the historical record. Additionally, the stories shall be shared widely – through radio, podcasts and local events that bring these narratives to life in their communities.

“Changing the narrative works best when everyone can hear the stories,” Clark said. “It’s not just about sharing our stories in Black communities – it’s about the wider world hearing these stories. This is how we change the perspective.”

Each city involved in Brightness in Black can have the opportunity to present these stories locally, allowing residents of Philadelphia, Atlanta and other future cities to listen to reflections on their very own community in a meaningful way. As “Brightness in Black” develops over the next three years, Clark is worked up about the project’s potential impact. “This is not just a collection of stories – it is a movement to change the way we view and value Black lives,” she said.

“We want to ensure that at the end of this initiative, we have created a lasting legacy that future generations can look back on and see the full picture of Black life in America.”

This article was originally published on : www.essence.com

Health and Wellness

Why Monday is the most dangerous day on a construction site

Published

12 hours ago

November 24, 2024

IAM

The Australian construction industry employs over 1.3 million employees. That’s about 9% of the workforce.

But there could also be construction sites dangerous workplaces. There are also more accidents on the street Monday than every other weekday, as we see on this pattern many countries.

Many aspects give us this “The Monday effect“. We can address these and other issues to scale back avoidable workplace accidents on Mondays and other weekdays.

Construction is dangerous

The construction sector has higher rates accidents at work than the national average.

The industry reported that in 2023 45 employees diedwhich is a rise from the five-year average of 33.

Construction employees most often die from being hit by moving objects. The next most common causes are deaths resulting from falls, trips and slips.

Financial yr 2022-23 There were over 16,600 serious employees’ compensation claims in the construction sector. The median salary is now A$18,479 and the median lost work time is 8.5 weeks – each higher than in previous years.

“The Monday Effect”

Various studies conducted in numerous regions confirm that “The Monday effect”in construction. For example, a Chinese study found that fatal accidents occurred 12.6% more often on Mondays in comparison with other weekdays. There was a similar trend in Spain AND Hong Kong.

We also see “The Monday effect” IN other industries, akin to agriculture, forestry, mining and manufacturing.

A Spanish study that checked out records almost 3 million accidents at workincluding construction, confirmed the Monday effect across industries, firms of all sizes, every kind of employees, and every kind of injuries.

Linked data from all workplace accidents in Queensland also confirms Monday’s impact.

Why Mondays?

Construction accidents are more likely on Monday many reasons.

For example, staying up late on Sunday night and getting a poor night’s rest the night before the work week starts contributes to “cognitive failures” and mistakes at work on Monday.

Mondays often involve starting recent tasks or projects. This may cause unknown risks.

Construction site conditions, including weather, may change over the weekend, causing unexpected hazards. For example, strong winds over the weekend could cause scaffolding or unsecured materials to maneuver, increasing the risk of accidents on Monday.

We need to handle the root causes

AND test chargeable for the safety and efficiency of the Australian construction industry, stressed the have to proactively anticipate and stop accidents somewhat than taking motion after they occur – on Mondays or other days of the week.

The study used in-depth interviews with 30 industry professionals at 14 firms to discover several aspects contributing to construction accidents:

unrealistic deadlineswhich might prompt employees to rush and cut corners to get the job done on time
shortage of expert laborwhich suggests some employees could also be doing work for which they aren’t qualified
employees are afraid to talk out about safety concernswhich can result in failure to report and address potential threats
complicated and unknown custom structureswhich can involve unique risks and challenges that employees may not have encountered before
insufficient human factor risk assessmentwhich include fatigue, stress or cognitive overload and might result in errors and unsafe decisions on the spot
rushed training programsparticularly for safety reasons, which can leave employees unprepared to cope with risks or follow proper procedures.

What can we do to forestall accidents?

Part of the solution to a few of these problems is supporting a workplace culture during which security it is perceived as a core value and shared responsibility of employers, superiors and employees.

In construction firms, where safety is treated as “psychological contract” – unwritten but mutual obligations of employees and superiors – employees are higher equipped identifying and eliminating security threats.

Awareness campaigns highlighting issues akin to the “Monday effect” can even encourage adjustments to workflows to scale back the risk of accidents. This may include scheduling less dangerous or less complex tasks for Mondays to present employees time to return to their every day duties.

What else can we do?

Technology it will possibly also help prevent accidents.

For example, wearable sensors on a wristband or smartphone can discover, track and monitor employees body posture. These sensors can detect unsafe lifting practices, excessive bending, or prolonged exposure to a static or uncomfortable position. These are aspects that may contribute to ergonomic risks and injuries.

Augmented reality could be used to simulate tasks to assist employees practice techniques safely.

Artificial intelligence could analyze the image from the camera Down monitor workplaces in case of dangerous activities and signaling threats.

But cost concernsprivacy and industry belief that these investments are worthwhile are amongst the barriers to the adoption of those technologies.

Talking about money

Raising awareness of the economic costs of workplace accidents can change attitudes and priorities.

2019 Australian study found that the average cost of a construction accident ranges from $2,040 to $6,024,517. This depends on whether the accident resulted in brief or long absence from work, whether someone is partially or completely unable to work, or whether someone dies.

Elements of this estimate include compensation, lack of income or earnings, costs of coaching and retraining of staff, social welfare advantages, in addition to costs of treatment, tests and care.

Goal: zero deaths

Deaths and injuries at work on construction sites mustn’t be dismissed as accidents. They are a symptom of many systemic aspects that should be addressed through thoughtful motion and a commitment to safety.

Just as road safety initiatives aim to realize zero fatalities, the construction industry should focus on achieving zero workplace fatalities.

This article was originally published on : theconversation.com

Health and Wellness

Yvette Nicole Brown’s glamorous bachelorette party was a star-studded affair

Published

18 hours ago

November 24, 2024

Getty

Yvette Nicole Brown is sort of ready for her big day, and her girls are by her side to assist her rejoice her upcoming nuptials.

Brown will soon marry actor Anthony Davis, Brown, 53, celebrated on Nov. 17 with a lavish wedding reception along with her closest friends and sorority sisters at Inglewood’s only Black-owned winery, 1010 Wine & Events. This star-studded event was planned by William P. Miller and hosted by legendary black actresses reminiscent of Vanessa Bell Calloway Lela Rochon Fuqua Kym Whitley, who was also the “Shower Master of Ceremonies.”

The party’s theme was “Our Pearl Found Her Diamond” and paid tribute to Brown’s beloved sorority, Alpha Kappa Alpha, and its signature pearls and diamond engagement ring. Brown became a proud soror of Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority 30 years ago when she graduated from the University of Akron in Ohio, where she became a member of the Delta Pi chapter.

The guest list included several of Brown’s famous friends from Black Hollywood’s elite circle, including Kim Fields, Essence Atkins, Holly Robinson Peete, Wendy Raquel Robinson, Cree Summer Francks and Yvette Lee Bowser.

The ladies rejoiced with the music of DJ Candice Manier, original SV Vodka cocktails and a cake created by Southern Girl Desserts. They also made pearl jewelry, played games, and watched a video with sweet messages and photos.

For Brown, having her friends’ support down the aisle “means everything.”

“I think most of them were or are married. I know a few of them have been at least proposed,” Brown says. “This is my first everything. It’s exciting to be able to sit at their feet and hear their opinions on various topics, and to be able to tell me what they think about it all.”

We cannot wait for Brown to tie the knot along with her beau next month.

This article was originally published on : www.essence.com