Refugee Family Nurtures Culture In Hartford Community Garden
On a September weekday morning, Maaye May removes the lock and chain from one of two gates and enters the Niles Street Community Garden in Hartford. A 6-foot high, black-metal fence encloses the garden, which measures half the size of a football field. Within the gated oasis, the city surroundings slip away as bees, birds, […]
Tourette Syndrome Awareness Rises After Spike In Reported Tics And Billie Eilish’s Reveal Of Her Childhood Diagnosis
As a fifth grader growing up in Stratford, Bridget Phelan-Nelson used to shout the same string of obscenities every morning. “I would repeat it over and over on my walk to school so I wouldn’t say it at school,” recalls Phelan-Nelson, now 39. She also had multiple motor tics throughout middle school and high school, […]
Access And Insurance Continue To Be Obstacles To Gender-Affirming Surgery in Connecticut
Since coming out as transgender in 2015, Lillian Maisfehlt has spent $10,000 on electrolysis and had voice and hormone therapy and breast construction. She also spent 10 days in Pennsylvania recovering from vaginoplasty, an operation that few surgeons perform for transgender women in Connecticut. Maisfehlt, 47, of Chester, said the pain, cost and occasional fights […]
Yale-Led Study Seeks To Transform Heart Disease Diagnoses In Women
Karen Lombardi, a school instructional coach, had just taken an unruly child out of a classroom when she felt severe chest pains. She drove to Yale New Haven Hospital, sweating profusely and hyperventilating, and was diagnosed with a heart attack. Five weeks later, she was back in the hospital with more chest pains. It was […]
Rise In Food Insecurity Drives Innovative Strategies
An abundance of healthy selections. Clearly marked nutrition labeling. The ability to pre-order. Fresh produce and meat. The 364,040 people in Connecticut who face hunger—one in every 10 residents—are increasingly likely to find these and other grocery store-like features at their local food pantries. Throughout the state, more appealing ways to address food insecurity—a plight […]
State Officials Nixed Health Information Network Computer Software They Spent $20M Developing
When Connecticut needed a computer system for its planned health information network, it came up with a novel solution. Instead of hiring consultants, the state tapped the University of Connecticut to develop the software for the network known as Connie. In 2017, the school created a new unit called UConn Analytics and Information Management Solutions—UConn […]
Will New School Year Test New Haven Board’s Policy Aimed At Protecting Transgender And Nonconforming Students?
One by one, speakers lined up at a New Haven Board of Education meeting last fall to support a policy ensuring “the safety, comfort, and healthy development” of LGBTQ youths in school. Parents, teachers, advocates and students came forward, most with an anecdote and a plea: to protect children in New Haven schools who are […]
‘One Way or Another, COVID Will Get You:’ Uninfected Yet Greatly Affected
On a bustling Friday morning, the aroma of rice and beans wafts through a cloud of hairspray in Romy’s Beauty Salon in Meriden. Merengue music soothes the senses. Customers exchange pleasantries in Spanish as Romy Norwood offers each a small bowl of “arroz y habichuela,” the Dominican staple of rice and beans. Later in the […]
A Deadly Mix For Boaters: Distractions, Alcohol And No Life Jacket
On a warm, slightly overcast Sunday afternoon last August 8, boaters near the Salmon River boat launch on the Connecticut River in East Haddam noticed a personal watercraft drifting without a rider. Less than an hour later, state environmental police recovered a man’s body floating nearby in a no-wake zone. Stephen Fabian, 59, of Moodus, […]
Should Gun Safety Be On Your Doctor’s Check List? Researchers Want To Know Why It Isn’t
Doctor Stacy J. Taylor routinely asks her patients about safe gun storage at home. “I had someone say they put it in their bedside table and it is loaded,” said Taylor, a family practitioner with Trinity Health New England. “So, I said, ‘Maybe that’s not a great idea. If you don’t have a safe, at […]