Tagged: health care

More than 500 workers at Providence St. Peter Hospital in Olympia are on strike.

Access to HIV and TB treatment has been improving worldwide. The rate of new infections is going down. But tuberculosis remains deadly, especially for the poverty stricken — TB killed 1.4 million people in 2011. Luwiza Makukula was diagnosed with HIV and TB after her husband died in 2001. Not only was she sick, she was completely isolated. Today, she works with NGOs focused on treatment, care, and support for HIV/TB patients, including Zambia's Community Initiative for TB, HIV/AIDS and Malaria (CITAM+). Luwiza Makukula joins us.

A preliminary report from the Washington State Hospital Association shows that emergency room  visits by frequent users fell by 23 percent between June and October of last year.

Since 2006, more than 40,000 soldiers, police officers, traffickers and citizens have died in Mexico’s bloody drug war — from the mountains where pot and poppies are grown to the streets of Mexico City. Journalist Ioan Grillo tracks the rise of the cartels and their increasing influence north of the border in his book, "El Narco." He joins Steve Scher with a report from the front lines of the Mexican drug war.