By Susan Greene | Colorado News Collaborative Colorado’s new Behavioral Health Administration shut down part of the Western Slope’s only psychiatric hospital on Wednesday in response to complaints about the quality and safety of the care it gives teenagers and kids as young as seven. Also Wednesday, the Department of[Read More…]
Tag: Colorado News Collaborative
Whistleblowers say they falsified patient records at Mind Springs Health
RBC | A troubled Western Slope mental health care center falsified assessments of its patients’ conditions for at least nine years in an effort to make its treatment programs seem more effective and secure funding from the state, whistleblowers say. The state overlooked what former workers describe as a long[Read More…]
Investigation into Mind Springs reveals ‘severe, life-threatening’ prescription errors
RBC I A pattern of “severe, life-threatening” prescription errors by the troubled mental health center responsible for treating 10 Western Slope counties put many of its patients at risk, according to the findings of an official investigation that three state agencies withheld from the public for more than nine months.[Read More…]
The trouble with Mind Springs
Two counties are breaking from their mental health provider. Others are taking notes. By SUSAN GREENE Colorado News Collaborative This investigation is part of the ongoing “On Edge” series about Colorado’s mental health by the Colorado News Collaborative, the nonprofit that unites more than 160 communities and news outlets to[Read More…]
The mental health workforce shortage
This investigation is part of the ongoing “On Edge” series about Colorado’s mental health by the Colorado News Collaborative, the nonprofit that unites more than 160 communities and news outlets like ours to ensure quality news for all Coloradans. The series title reflects a state that has the nation’s highest[Read More…]
Herald Times chosen for #newsCOneeds fundraising campaign
We’re thrilled to announce that we are one of the 26 newsrooms selected to participate in the @co.mediaproject #newsCOneeds matching challenge— a campaign that drives membership and contributions to homegrown, Colorado newsrooms (like us!). More details to come on how readers like you can play a significant role in helping[Read More…]
After wanting to die, learning to live
AURORA | Navee Essien has grown up keenly aware of her gifts. More times than she can count, people have reminded the senior at Aurora’s Rangeview High how fortunate she is to have a close family and strong support system, academic and athletic talent, ease making friends, and the kind[Read More…]
How friendship can be a safety net
GRAND JUNCTION | It started about four years ago when Laurel Carpenter and Melissa Humphrey bought matching parkas and then matching comfort shoes. Soon enough, the nurses-slash-best friends from Grand Junction found themselves with matching chihuahua-print leggings and matching hoodies with fleece-lined pockets in which they carry their matching chihuahuas.[Read More…]
Veteran paramedic grapples with post-COVID toll on his lungs and his sense of self
ALAMOSA | Even now, nearly three months after COVID invaded his body, Jason McGinnis cannot stop asking himself how he contracted the virus. On its face, the answer seems clear: He’s a paramedic. But he was careful, thought himself well-protected, thought that if he did catch COVID, he’d knock it[Read More…]
In the wake of furloughs, closings, suicides, a mountain town businessman searches for balance
BRECKENRIDGE | Dick Carleton came to Breckenridge from Virginia when he was 24. He had a business degree from Virginia Tech, a ‘69 Volkswagen bug, $100 and three friends willing to share a crappy two-bedroom condo with no insulation. It was awful. It was glorious. He was “full of rebel[Read More…]
The Splotch: In a rural Eastern Plains community plagued by drought, stigma won’t be easy to overcome
EADS | “The Splotch,” as some here call the brown mark on the map they check weekly, is the color of scorched earth. Here in Kiowa County, farmers have always relied on whatever moisture happens to fall from the sky rather than on irrigation. In August, this 1,300-person community bordering[Read More…]
Speaking about depression
DENVER | Some words fail us, and for Robert Werthwein, “depression” is one of them. The 41-year-old director of Colorado’s Behavioral Health Office prefers to say “everything turned to complete s—” when his identical twin, Ryan, died of a brain tumor a week before their 15th birthdays, and that his[Read More…]
