Dave Ranney
Senior Writer/Editor
Dave Ranney is a Senior Writer/Editor for KHI News Service.
Stories by Dave Ranney
State scrutiny of early head start programs prompts questions
One of Kansas’ largest early childhood development programs has decided not to reapply for nearly $1 million in Early Head Start funding because of difficulties dealing with a state agency. “This wasn’t something we wanted to do,” said Teresa Rupp, longtime executive director at Child Start, a Wichita-based program that provides Head Start and Early…
Ruling on in-home Medicaid services raises concerns
Karen Barezinsky is looking for an answer to what she says is a simple question: Are the people who run Kansas’ Medicaid program planning to cut the supports she and her husband use to keep her son, Ray Santin, who’s paralyzed from his neck down, out of a nursing home? “I can’t find out anything,”…
KDADS analysis identifies 11 communities with greater mental health needs
A Kansas Department for Aging and Disability Services official said Thursday that the agency has identified 11 communities that appear to be referring inordinate numbers of patients to the state hospitals for mentally ill or have above-average numbers of inmates in the state’s correctional systems who are known to be mentally ill. “We’ve been going…
Ottawa shooting renews focus on crisis intervention training
Out of the 8,000 full- and part-time law enforcement officers in Kansas, only 1 in 4 have been trained to handle crisis calls involving the mentally ill. Records show that 80 percent of the nearly 1,800 trained officers work in four high-population counties: Johnson, Sedgwick, Shawnee and Wyandotte. The other 20 percent – about 360…
Kansas mental health system under increasing stress
OSAWATOMIE — One day last month, Osawatomie State Hospital had 254 patients in its care — almost 50 more than its optimal capacity. The overcrowded conditions forced a few dozen patients, all of them coping with a serious mental illness and likely a danger to themselves or others, to be triple-bunked in rooms meant for two….
One in eight Kansas pregnancies in 2013 involved women who smoked
In Kansas last year, more than 4,800 women smoked cigarettes during their pregnancies, according to a preliminary summary of birth statistics released Tuesday by the Kansas Department of Health and Environment. The finding means that in 2013, about one in every eight births – 12.5 percent – involved mothers who smoked for at least three…
Brownback signs law expanding autism coverage
By Dave Ranney KHI News Service Bryan Thompson Kansas Public Radio OVERLAND PARK — Gov. Sam Brownback signed into law Wednesday a measure that is expected to make insurance coverage for autism services available to about 750 children over the next two to three years. House Bill 2744 was a compromise measure that gained eventual support from…
The new Rainbow plan
By Dave Ranney—KHI News Service KANSAS CITY, Kan. – Gov. Sam Brownback today unveiled his administration’s plan for reopening the Rainbow Mental Health Facility. “I think this is a winner,” Brownback said, referring to a Kansas Department for Aging and Disability Services plan for privatizing the state hospital’s operations. The plan calls…
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