HealthCetera

As cutbacks in programs and funding for health care and social services escalate at the federal level under the Trump Administration and Congress, the need for local action to support the most vulnerable among us in the Catskills is escalating, whether it be advising people on how to maintain their enrollment in Medicaid and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) or helping with hous...

Photo by Yassine Khalfalli on Unsplash Keeping people out of hospitals depends, in part, on robust ambulatory services, whether primary care or specialty care. Margaretville Hospital, part of the Health Alliance of the Hudson Valley and WMCHealth, is a critical access hospital in the Catskill region of New York State that has been expanding its ambulatory care services. Vicky Misner and April Brim...

The Reporter is a local newspaper that covers issues in Delaware County, NY, and Catskills towns and villages. Joan Lawrence-Bauer is a reporter for the newspaper and HealthCetera host Diana Mason, PhD, RN, talked with her about some of the issues and stories the paper covered in May 2026. This interview first aired on HealthCetera in the Catskills on WIOX Radio on May 20, 2026. The post The Repor...

Photo by Robina Weermeijer on Unsplash When older adults talk with their peers of the same age group, they often talk about whether their forgetfulness is a sign of dementia. None of us wants that diagnosis for ourselves or those we love. Most of us know people who have been caregivers for people with dementia and have witnessed the emotional toll it takes on family and friends, as well as the per...

Photo by Dose Juice on Unsplash HR1, the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, was enacted on July 4 th of 2025. The law includes cuts to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, that have already resulted in over 3 million people losing this important benefit. On June 1 st , the federal government issued the regulations that operationalize the law’s requirement that people between the...

Photo by Dominik Lange on Unsplash Being a family caregiver for a loved one  who is ill or frail or disabled may come from a place of love but it can also be a very stressful responsibility, sometimes jeopardizing the physical, emotional, and financial health of the caregiver. There are 53 million U.S. family caregivers who provide critical daily unpaid assistance to loved ones, including to the m...

Photo by Ashley Walker on Unsplash Sudden infant death syndrome, or SIDS, is the unexplained death of a healthy baby, usually before their first birthday, that often occurs during sleep. It’s also been called crib death, and is a leading cause of death in infants. One of the strategies that the United States has used to try to reduce these deaths is to tell new mothers not to sleep with their babi...

Margaretville Hospital has been a cornerstone of Eastern Delaware County for 95 years. During this time when rural hospitals are closing at an accelerating rate across the country, the hospital has new leadership and its parent organizations, Health Alliance of the Hudson Valley and WMCHealth, are standing behind this critical access hospital, expanding services and being engaged with the communit...

Photo by National Cancer Institute on Unsplash In 2018, NY State passed a law requiring that nurses who graduated with a diploma or associate degree in nursing get a baccalaureate degree within 10 years of becoming licensed in the state if they want to continue to practice as a registered nurse. The NYS Education Department recently issued regulations to implement this law and the regulations were...

Brian Maher is the Assemblyman for NY’s 101 st Assembly district that includes parts of Orange, Ulster, Sullivan, and Delaware Counties. Assemblyman Maher is in the Navy reserves and was activated and deployed last year. He remains deployed and his chief of staff, Meghan Hurlburt, is carrying forth with representing him and his positions in the Assembly and the communities he represents. HealthCet...

Photo by Patty Brito on Unsplash The U.S. healthcare system is in crisis.  COVID strained health care organizations and stressed healthcare workers; and it seems that we’ve not yet recovered from that nightmare. We’re unlikely to see the system recover in the short term and it may take a lot longer, as the Trump Administration and Congress make cuts to tax credits for health insurance, Medica...

Photo by Meg Sanchez on Unsplash Summer is upon us and, even in spring, people are enjoying the outdoors after a rough winter. But the sunny days are not innocuous. Public health nurse and HealthCetera Correspondent Barbara Glickstein, MPH, RN, FAAN, who worked for a time in a dermatologist’s office many years ago and continues to pay attention to issues related to skin cancer, talked with HealthC...

Photo by Igor Omilaev on Unsplash Artificial intelligence (AI) is already upending our world. It’s being used in health care in a variety of ways, including for interpreting x-rays and other imaging, flagging potential concerns that a clinician may overlook, and supporting diagnostic decision-making. There have been suggestions that robots and AI could even replace nurses. Needless to say, there a...

Photo by Sergiu Vălenaș on Unsplash Wars and other life circumstances can result in children being orphaned and neglected. Around the world, including in our own community, grandparents are becoming caregivers for their grandchildren, but often with little support. Someone who has been studying this issue is Dr. Schola Matovu, a gerontological nurse scientist, Assistant Professor and Director of G...

Photo by Reproductive Health Supplies Coalition on Unsplash In June of 2022 in the case of Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, the Supreme Court overruled Roe v. Wade on the basis that access to abortion is a state issue. Since that decision, some states have passed laws restricting or banning altogether women’s access to abortion. But the Food and Drug Administration approved the distri...

Photo by CDC on Unsplash Pediatric providers — whether a pediatrician or pediatric nurse practitioner—are in short supply not just here but across the country. One pediatric nurse practitioner is sounding the alarm about this issue and HealthCetera producer and host, Diana Mason, RN, PhD, talked with this nurse, Dr. Rajashree Koppolu, about the shortage, its impact on access to care for child...

We now know that things like access to affordable housing and healthy food, good jobs that provide a livable income, education, safe environments, and other factors that make up what we call the “social determinants of health” are more powerful in promoting health of individuals and communities than health care itself. Sir Michael Marmot has been a pioneer in advancing this concept and...

Photo by Vitalii Pavlyshynets on Unsplash Secretary of Health and Human Services, Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., continues to push forward his Make America Healthy Again or MAHA agenda that has been both hailed for its attention to things like nutrition and chemical exposures, and criticized for what some see as its inadequacies in being evidence based and detracting from the importance of protecting the...

Photo by Hush Naidoo Jade Photography on Unsplash The second hour begins with a focus on two community leaders’ perspectives on the local impact of the federal policy changes: Allen Hinkley, the Supervisor for the town of Roxbury that includes the hamlets of Roxbury and Grand Gorge, as well as the Denver-Vega Valley, Hardscrabble, West Settlement; and Glen Faulkner, the Town Supervisor for M...

Photo by Hush Naidoo Jade Photography on Unsplash On November 19, 2025, HealthCetera in the Catskills host  Diana Mason, PhD, RN, produced and hosted a 2-hour special on the impact of federal policy changes on the health and wellbeing of the people living in the Catskills region of New York State. Co-hosted by Richard Siegel, a social work administrator who now teaches policy part-t...