Hudson Valley healthcare workers tell their stories, in their own words
We spoke with 19 local healthcare workers about their experiences during the Covid-19 pandemic. Here’s what they told us.
Health
Nurse’s association plans demonstration to bring mental-health treatment back to Kingston
The New York State Nurse’s Association is planning a motorcade to Albany to get the state legislature to take action to bring mental-health and detoxification services back to Kingston. Health Alliance has offered these services in the past, but some 60 Health Alliance beds were moved recently. Village of Saugerties trustee Donald Hackett and mayor William Murphy have been working on a resolution regarding the loss in the services.
Ulster expands Mobile Mental Health Team
While two teams have been on call from noon to 10 p.m. and only one team on call from 10 a.m. to noon, the service will be expanded to a second team on call during the morning hours. Beginning in 2021, the Mobile Mental Health Team will also include a dispatcher at the 911 call center, who “will be a licensed clinician who will assist the 911 center operators in determining the appropriate intervention needed to respond to calls from individuals reporting on a behavioral-health-related issue.”
If tinnitus is killing you, let it
If you start to sentimentalize and tragedize your tinnitus—“for I shall never taste the silence of the night sky again”(pronounced ah-GAYN), then you’re really in for it. You’re ruined. Instead, I recommend considering all the rest of your reality as something equally unverifiable and incommunicable. Imagine all you perceive as your brain and sensory apparatus involved in a complex act of imitative modeling based on incomplete input, and not as the direct experience of creation through the open, undistorted tubes of your eyes and ears.
A guide to herbal first aid
In an age of tenuous global supply chains, it doesn’t hurt to know how to treat common ailments with plants growing in your backyard.
Many locals say they’re not in a rush to get Covid-19 vaccine when released
Since the shutdowns began in spring, it’s often been said that life won’t go back to normal until a Covid-19 vaccine is released. But as cases number have continued to grow, so too has skepticism about the vaccine.
For local college students, remote-instruction, increased workload, and lack of time off has been a grind
“School can be stressful in general,” says one student. “Now with everything in a totally different format and it being new to everyone, I am on edge all the time.”
Local mental-health professionals talk about the impacts of the pandemic
Many are experiencing symptoms similar to [those of] solitary confinement and experiencing extreme bouts of depression and an increase in suicidal thoughts.”
Ulster officials boost efforts to combat opiate overdoses as numbers spike
In Ulster, overdoses have increased over 150 percent. The county is responding with expanded outreach and support programs and partnerships.
Ulster exec hopes to rally support to keep inpatient mental-health treatment in Kingston
Ulster County Executive Pat Ryan said a move by the parent company of HealthAlliance could extend what was to be a temporary reduction in local mental-health treatment capacity brought on by a need for greater hospital capacity for Covid-19 to a permanent one.