Author Archives: Justine88

Posted on by

When suicide threats come calling: ‘I try to make a connection.’

Taylor Turosz, 27, of Tampa listens to a caller during an evening shift earlier this month at the Crisis Center of Tampa Bay. When celebrities commit suicide, she says, the number of crisis calls goes up. "People are hurt, and those of that particular fan base feel it more deeply," she said. "They identify more. But we're glad people do call. I always hope they do rather than not." [TAILYR IRVINE | Times]

By Justine Griffin for the Tampa Bay Times

TAMPA — At first glance, it’s a typical office with more than a dozen cubicles under florescent lights. The operators wear headsets and stare into computer screens, some tinkering with handheld toys, others browsing Facebook or chatting with colleagues when the phones go quiet. The faint sound of tapping keyboards is nearly constant.

Then a burst of classical music plays — loudly — and the energy in the room goes still.

Along the cubicles, their eyes shift to one another until someone speaks up.

“I got it,” says Taylor Turosz.

The musical ringtone carries a particular urgency — that a call from the National Suicide Prevention Hotline has been routed here, to the Crisis Center of Tampa Bay. The center also handles a half-dozen other hotlines dealing with sexual assault, veterans issues and substance abuse, among other topics, but suicide calls take priority.

Suddenly, Turosz is talking to a man who says he’s holding a loaded gun. His sister just died; now he wants to die too.

Turosz pulls her knees up to her chest in the rolling office chair. She tucks a long strand of red hair behind her ear. The rings on her fingers clink against the keys as she takes notes, the letters on the screen spelling trouble on the other end of the line.

He felt like people are better off without him. He’s very distraught.

“Where are you now?” Turosz asks him more than once.

She speaks softly, calmly, maternally. But most of the time, Turosz, a 27-year-old University of South Florida student, just listens.

“I can hear that you’re really upset,” she tells him. “I want to understand what’s going on around you.”

Read more here. 

Posted on by

HIV is on the rise in Florida and young people don’t seem to care

Robert Marquez of Tampa was diagnosed with HIV at 18. He didn't know much about the disease at the time, but quickly did his research. "It didn't make me feel better," said Marquez, now 20. "But it gave me hope." [BRONTE WITTPENN | Times]

By Justine Griffin for the Tampa Bay Times 

Robert Marquez was 18 when he got the news that would change his life forever.

He was HIV positive.

“I knew nothing about it outside of it being a ‘gay disease’ like my conservative parents and pastor said about it,” said Marquez, now 20. “But now, I know that’s not true. It can affect anyone. But it’s also possible to live a long, normal life.”

His case is one example of a double-edged reality that has raised concern among advocates as HIV makes an unwelcome comeback in Florida. While the stigma has lifted somewhat and effective treatments have lessened much of the danger, the disease no longer presses on the public consciousness like it once did.

That and a lack of public information have contributed to a rise in cases among a new generation of young people who never knew the fear that HIV evoked in earlier times.

Florida continues to rank at or near the top nationally for HIV diagnoses, with Pinellas and Hillsborough counties among the regions that are considered hotbeds of activity. And local health officials say they are seeing more cases among people in their early teens to early 20s.

“Yes, HIV is more manageable these days, but it’s on the rise again. Younger people are being diagnosed and don’t seem to understand the consequences or know the history of the stigma behind HIV and AIDS,” said Lorraine Langlois, CEO of Metro Wellness & Community Centers, a network of health care facilities that specialize in LBGTQ services around Tampa Bay.

While state health officials typically don’t release HIV data in real time, many available numbers support what advocates say they are seeing in their centers.

According to the Florida Department of Health, the number of HIV diagnoses:

• Increased 8 percent statewide among people of all ages from 2014 to 2016.

• Shot up 20 percent from 2007 to 2016 for people in their 20s across the state.

• Rose significantly over the same nine years for people in their 20s in Tampa Bay. The increase was 28 percent in Pinellas and Pasco counties, and 23 percent in Hillsborough County.

Nationally, people ages 13 to 24 accounted for 21 percent of all new HIV diagnoses in the U.S. in 2016, with most of those occurring among those who are 20 to 24, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Many of them are not using condoms, a problem that has only worsened in the last decade. In a CDC survey last year, only 54 percent of sexually active high school students said they used condoms the last time they had intercourse, down from 61 percent in 2007.

Read more here.

Posted on by

The future of Tampa Bay hospital care looks a lot like Apple and Amazon

Renderings show the improvements coming to St. Joseph's Hospital in Tampa. The hospital, part of the BayCare system, is planning a $126 million, six-story tower that will add 30 private rooms on each level. It's just a slice of the massive investments currently in the works as local hospitals work to keep up with demands from growing population, advances in technology and changing patient preferences. [Courtesy of BayCare]

By Justine Griffin for the Tampa Bay Times

Tampa Bay residents have more say than ever in how they go to the doctor.

Patients can chat with a physician from their phones, or from a computer screen at a grocery or drug store kiosk. Urgent care clinics and freestanding emergency rooms are proliferating across the region. And many hospitals are undergoing multi-million dollar upgrades, with amenities like private rooms, to accommodate a rising tide of patients.

The future will bring even more convenience, according to CEOs of the Tampa Bay area’s largest health care organizations.

In recent interviews, they described a health care landscape that is changing rapidly to keep up with population growth, new technology, changing patient preferences and government rules designed to keep people out of the hospital. More than one likened their new, evolving approach to the way companies like Apple and Amazon have changed the retailing world.

Hospitals and their offshoots will be more “consumer centric,” they said.

“Retail ready” is how Tampa General Hospital CEO John Couris described it, using Apple as the model.

“Their stores are cool, we like going online through their products,” he said. “There might be phones out there that can do more stuff than the iPhone, but we pay Apple because their network is reliable. It’s a real relationship, and that’s something we’re trying to create in health care now.”

The key will be adjusting as customer expectations change, said Tommy Inzina, CEO of BayCare, which operates 15 hospitals in Tampa Bay and surrounding areas.

An example: “Years ago, it was very common for a patient to have a roommate,” he said. “With patients paying more money out of their own pockets for health care now, they don’t want a roommate anymore.”

What makes Tampa Bay and Florida unique in some ways is that the population is still growing. That’s the main driver of new construction and renovations, which nearly all of the major hospital systems in Tampa Bay are investing in right now, said Jay Wolfson, a professor with USF Health.

A particular focus will be on “the Medicare, commercially insured and cash-paying parts of that market,” he said. “For patients, it should mean more access and choice. And while the physical brick-and-mortar acquisitions and expansions under brand names continues, each of the corporate health care powerhouses in our community are very busy developing virtual care systems and will expand dramatically in the years ahead to include home-based care management and marketing so that ‘visits’ to the doctor or hospital will be less necessary.”

Like retailers, they’re learning that convenience is key.

Read more here.

Posted on by

A transgender man in search of hormone therapy, he turned to Planned Parenthood

After leaving Pasco County to attend Florida Gulf Coast University, Kasey Fraize received hormone therapy through Planned Parenthood. The resulting changes made him more comfortable as a transgender man and inspired him to become active on campus, teaching fellow students about transgender issues. "I struggled to find my place here at first," he says. "There's a huge gap between the students. So I wanted to fill it." [OCTAVIO JONES | Times]

By Justine Griffin for the Tampa Bay Times

Kasey Fraize wasn’t afraid any more.

One day early in his freshman year at Florida Gulf Coast University, he entered the campus wellness center intent on finding ways to fit in.

“I walked right up to the desk and asked what kind of resources they had for the transgender community,” Fraize, now 20, recalls. “She handed me a dusty old pamphlet that was so bad.”

It used the scientific but sometimes negatively charged term “hermaphrodite” to describe transgender people.

The moment propelled Fraize to get involved, and to prod his new school toward a better understanding of students like him. But he says it never would have been possible without help from an unexpected source.

Planned Parenthood, best known for reproductive health services including abortions, had just started a program to offer hormone therapy at many of its Florida health centers. Fraize discovered the program, and got a prescription for testosterone from a Planned Parenthood doctor not far from campus.

After struggling to find acceptance back home in Pasco County, where some still call him “Cassandra,” the therapy brought welcome changes to his body and helped him feel more like himself.

He got a job at FGCU’s wellness center and began to host forums about the transgender community and other issues. This year, he ran for a seat in student government.

“Maybe it was the hormones,” Fraize says, “but I was on a mission.”

Read more here.

Posted on by

Justine Griffin Selected As A 2018 SABEW Health Care Fellow

[Press release from SABEW:]

Sixteen journalists have been selected as fellows for SABEW’s sixth annual Health Care Symposium made possible by a grant from The Commonwealth Fund.

The group will gather in Washington, D.C., June 28-30 at the National Press Club and at the Bloomberg, Washington, D.C. bureau. The symposium will help the fellows better understand health-care economics and will provide an update on the Affordable Care Act. Fellows will be able to share and test out story ideas.

The 2018 health care fellows are:

  • Emily Baumgaertner, news assistant at The New York Times
  • Jenny Deam, senior health care reporter at the Houston Chronicle
  • Amanda Eisenberg, New York health care reporter at POLITICO
  • Justine Griffin, health and medicine reporter at the Tampa Bay Times
  • Chris Larson, health care and higher education reporter at Louisville Business First
  • Jacquie Lee, reporter at Bloomberg Law
  • Rory Linnane, reporter at USA Today Network, Wisconsin
  • Kathryn Mayer, editor-in-chief at Employee Benefit News
  • Elizabeth O’Brien, senior writer at MONEY Magazine
  • Elle Perry, digital producer at Memphis Business Journal
  • Yiqin Shen, senior reporter at Mergermarket
  • Greg Slabodkin, managing editor at Health Data Management
  • Joel Stinnett, health care and technology reporter at Nashville Business Journal
  • Kayla Webster, reporter at Sacramento Business Journal
  • Russ Wiles, business writer/columnist at Arizona Republic/AZCentral.com
  • Liz Young, reporter at Albany Business Review

“Journalists need support to cover an unclear and rapidly changing health care landscape,” said Kathleen Graham, executive director, SABEW. “The symposium will help reporters better understand the future of the Affordable Care Act, Medicare, single payer health care models and prescription drug pricing.”

Speakers include Sara Collins, vice president for the Health Care Coverage and Access program at The Commonwealth Fund; Sabrina Corlette, J.D., research professor at Center on Health Insurance Reforms at Georgetown University’s Health Policy Institute; Robin Rudowitz, associate director, program on Medicaid and the uninured at Kaiser Family Foundation and Zachary Tracer, reporter at Bloomberg News. Additional speakers will be added to the agenda. Ridgely Ochs, former health care reporter at Newsday, is producing the symposium.