Health care

Dr. Shelly Harkins, the president and chief medical officer of Helena’s Saint Peter’s Health made this sobering announcement Thursday morning: “For the first time in my career we are at the point where not every patient in need will get the care we might wish we could give.”

A nearly $1 million federal grant has allowed the state to contract with six providers that could provide drug treatment to over 400 Montanans over the next two years.

A proposal to create a politically appointed panel to decide who gets Medicaid coverage for abortions was met with bipartisan pushback last session. Republican lawmakers compromised and changed the proposal to a study of the issue over the next two years instead.

As COVID-19 cases surge, hospitals say they can’t get enough staff to keep up. Gov. Greg Gianforte’s administration says it’s collaborating with hospitals as needs arise.

New COVID-19 cases and related hospitalizations in Billings are putting so much strain on the local health care system that one hospital may start rationing care as early as this week.

For years, health care workers and people who’ve had to travel for family members’ mental health hospitalizations have been pushing Bozeman’s major hospital system, the nonprofit Bozeman Health, to add a behavioral health unit at its Deaconess Hospital. On Sept. 30, the system’s board plans to consider whether to add one as part of an expansion of its mental health services.

Montana is one of the 50 states that saw surveys pile up during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Montana’s mental and behavioral health care system is experiencing a generational crisis. “It’s on the verge of collapse,” says Mary Windecker of the Behavioral Health Alliance of Montana.

Montana’s largest hospital is asking Gov. Greg Gianforte’s office to deploy the National Guard to assist doctors and nurses who are stretched thin by the growing surge in COVID-19 cases. This is the second request for assistance in the last month.

A 15-year-old patient died by suicide earlier this year while under the care of Shodair Children’s Hospital in Helena. A state health department report released to Montana Free Press outlines insufficient staffing and inadequate monitoring in the hospital’s residential psychiatric unit may have contributed to the child’s death in May.