June Leffler, Author at West Virginia Public Broadcasting

More Than 8,000 Receiving Medical Cannabis In W.Va.

Medical cannabis is finally available to more than 8,000 patients in the Mountain State. Lawmakers greenlit the product in 2017, but it wasn’t until this year that a dozen dispensaries opened.

Now 60-year-old Fairmont resident Bob Fisher has access to a product that eases his back pain.

“I have two herniated discs in my lower back. Sometimes it’s not so bad, sometimes it’s really horrible,” Fisher said. “Like right now, I’m going through a spell where I’m going to Quasimodo coming out of the bell tower thing where I sort of drag one leg behind me.”

Fisher said that as a child of the 70s, he’s no stranger to some recreational cannabis use. But having post-traumatic stress disorder and back pain got him curious about the medicinal benefits of the plant.

He read up on the topic and was eager to participate in West Virginia’s program. However, he didn’t get his hopes up either. He had to wait five years for the product to be available.

“I waited until I actually saw news reports of active growing actually happening,” Fisher said. “Once I saw that someone actually had seeds in the dirt, that’s when I went ahead and did my application.”

Bob Fisher makes brownies out of his medical cannabis. Edibles aren’t legal in West Virginia, but Fisher can make it himself with product from dispensaries.

Fisher can now buy the product, though it’s not covered by insurance and isn’t cheap. He bakes brownies with it most often. He still takes pain medicine to ease his back problems, but he’s not taking nearly as many pills since he started cannabis. Fisher said it’s not a cure-all, but it gives him physical and mental relief.

“I can read or watch TV and be able to function without sitting and thinking about how miserable I am,” Fisher said.

The proposed benefits of medical cannabis are wide ranging. That’s because it taps into your endocannabinoid system. Much like your nervous system, it impacts every part of your body.

“I think within the next decade, we’ll see a whole new host of uses for medical cannabis,” said Dr. Meredith Fisher-Corn. She created the curriculum every doctor in West Virginia, and some other states, must take before they begin recommending cannabis.

“Every day, I read through the medical literature and I examine the medical cannabis studies, I do,” Fisher-Corn said.

She’s watched the research grow exponentially in recent years. She said the findings suggest a wider use for medical cannabis than what’s approved by the Food and Drug Administration. The FDA has only approved the cannabis components THC and CBD for those with cancer, HIV and a certain epilepsy.

That means cannabis is an off-label medication, which isn’t uncommon. Fisher-Corn offered a way to reconcile the limited FDA recommendations with what newer research says is possible, but not proven.

“The current research has not found that cannabinoid therapies are superior to the current first line therapies for any condition. So in other words, cannabis should not be used before a patient tries their current first line therapy for any condition,” Fisher-Corn said.

Fisher-Corn said doctors don’t often learn about the endocannabinoid system, but she thinks they should.

“Patients are just trying to explore cannabis therapies, and they need their clinicians’ assistance,” she said.

Patients in West Virginia are clearly interested. State law says doctors can’t advertise that they recommend the product, and still patients find doctors like Dr. Hassan Jafary. He’s a psychiatrist in Beckley.

He said older patients inquire about the product hoping it can ease them off pain pills.

“They know that this opioid, it doesn’t matter if it helps you… it’s not safe,” Jafary said.

Cannabis is in no way a panacea for opioid use disorder. Health agencies say you can even get addicted to cannabis. But Jafary points out the big difference between opioids and cannabis.

“No study will ever show that it’s ever killed anybody, you know?” he said.

Dr. Heather Skeens sits with her brother-in-law Reid Glass outside the Greenbrier Hotel. Glass died of cancer in 2019.

Dr. Heather Skeens first took interest in medical cannabis while her brother-in-law, Reid Glass, had terminal cancer.

“He was in severe pain and couldn’t sleep. He was very anxious all the time. Because he thought he would go to sleep and drown in his own blood because he had tumors throughout his lungs,” Skeens said.

She said Glass was prescribed opioids to ease his pain, but he also used cannabis. He had to get it illegally from a grower in Kentucky, where he had worked as an attorney, or from friends who had traveled to states where it was legal.

“It was the only thing that gave him a restful sleep,” Skeens said.

Taking care of her brother-in-law until his death in 2019 got Skeens interested in medical cannabis. She studied it in California and is licensed to recommend the product in a few other states.

She’s glad that dispensaries have opened in West Virginia, but she sees many roadblocks.

“Patients are really scared when they call, they feel like they’re going to be judged… They ask a lot of questions like ‘Is my doctor gonna know?… Is my employer gonna know? And am I gonna get in trouble?’” Skeens said.

She also criticizes how few conditions qualify patients for medical cannabis in the state.

State lawmakers decide which patients have access to medical cannabis. That includes folks with Parkinson’s or cancer or PTSD. But it doesn’t include other mental health conditions, such as anxiety or even substance use disorder.

“If I talk to my patients in Montana, these people over there, they’re so accustomed to cannabis being a normal treatment… But on this side of the US, there’s still a large stigma around it,” Skeens said.

Appalachia Health News is a project of West Virginia Public Broadcasting with support from Charleston Area Medical Center and Marshall Health.

As Pandemic Wanes, Healthcare Providers Still Face COVID Trauma

Whether medical professionals advise it or not, much of the country has returned to normal with regards to the coronavirus pandemic. But hospitals and health care providers are still struggling.

Appalachia Health News Reporter June Leffler spoke with Doug Mitchell, Chief of Nursing for WVU hospitals, about how things are going and where the pandemic is going from here.

This interview has been lightly edited for clarity.

Leffler: Over the fall and winter, cases and hospitalizations of COVID-19 were just through the roof. We know it was really hard on hospital staff. Have things gotten better?

Mitchell: So I think they have gotten somewhat better. We know that cases are down. Certainly hospitalizations are down and deaths are down too. But we still have hospitalizations. And we still do have patients dying from COVID. So by and large, things are better, but we’re certainly not out of the woods yet. We still have between probably 1500 and 1800 surgeries that were delayed based on this pandemic. The thinking that we’re kind of back to normal and the hospitals are good to go is really not accurate. We have lots of patients who need care that was deferred. And we’re in a kind of a mini surge right now. We’ve been down to very, very few patients and few staff out. But today, we actually have 13 patients here with active COVID disease, we have 60-some employees out with COVID. So we’re still feeling lots of stress from the COVID-19 pandemic.

Leffler: How are your nurses doing? Did they get to take time off? How are they doing?

Mitchell: It’s an interesting question. We know that 50 percent of nurses in the country are really, really burnt out from this whole thing. And I think we’re probably a fairly good representative of that. Thirty percent of nurses in the country are actively contemplating leaving their work. We have tried to have the ability to disconnect and not be here and take vacations and things like that. And we’re really emphasizing the idea of trying to disconnect when we’re not here, but it’s really hard. Having gone through the two years and some of the units that have seen so much devastation and death, and particularly at times where it seems like it wasn’t all necessary. It’s been really hard on folks. I just heard a story a couple of days ago on NPR about nurses talking about how it seems like, with a lot of folks, it’s just kind of back to normal out there. But there’s all this kind of shared trauma from having gone through this. So I think that folks are doing somewhat better, but we’re still not out of the woods. There’s a lot of healing that needs to happen here in the next few years.

Leffler: So nurses are contemplating leaving the profession and they’ve just had a hard time. What does that look like in terms of numbers and staffing levels?

Mitchell: We’ve always prided ourselves here at J.W. Ruby for being able to take every patient in the state that needs us. We’re the safety net hospital. We’re the academic medical center of our land grant university here at WVU. We’ve always been able to take everyone that needs our help. We have lots of small hospitals in the state and we provide specialty care. Through this pandemic, it’s the first time we’ve not been able to accept patients based on our ability to staff, with the nursing shortage, with lots of nurses leaving to go travel where they can make just incredible salaries.

Leffler: Where do we go from here? What are you planning for?

Mitchell: So first, I’ll just give a little plug. What we need to do is vaccinate, mask and test. Right? I assume most of the listeners right now, based on your demographics, are probably highly vaccinated. I would encourage everyone to do that, to mask still. And to get tested when one’s not feeling well.

It’s a relatively dangerous place to be in a hospital in this country. So we are working diligently to make it safer and more reliable. We want it to be a great place for employees to work, a safe place and emotionally safe place. I think most probably as importantly as anything is to really work with our team to be able to heal, having gone through this very traumatic couple of years of providing care for very, very sick patients and seeing all the death and dying that they’ve seen.

Leffler: Do you see this trauma dissipating?

Mitchell: Yeah, I think I am an optimist. I think we’ve kind of crested and I see light. My background is behavioral health. I did that for 27 years before I got into this particular role. So I think we have this shared trauma that we need to continue to work through and support each other and to make sure it’s okay for people to get care, and to feel comfortable saying “I’m not okay.”

We try to advocate for that here. And we put systems and support in place for that to occur. But there’s still a stigma. People still feel like they don’t want to show weakness or vulnerability, and they toughen it up. They’re tough nurses and physicians and healthcare workers and we want to make it a space where people can understand that what we just went through was really hard and it’s okay. As a matter of fact, it’s, frankly, heroic to ask for help and to ask for assistance.

Appalachia Health News is a project of West Virginia Public Broadcasting with support from Charleston Area Medical Center and Marshall Health.

New W.Va. Nursing Program Targets Non-Traditional Students

“Non-traditional students are, more so than traditional students, to stay at the bedside,” Callen said.

West Virginia Junior College (WVJC) announced a new nursing program meant to bring in non-traditional students. The program is in partnership with the largest hospital in the state, Charleston Area Medical Center (CAMC).

The statewide college already offers associate degrees in nursing, but this 18-month program is entirely online, aside from lab and clinical hours, which will be completed at CAMC.

WVJC CEO Chad Callen said that model can better serve students that aren’t straight out of high school. These are students that might already be working and supporting a family.

“They’re able to manage and balance life and learning simultaneously,” Callen said.

The model is based on WVJC’s online, rural nursing program. Enrollment in the associate degree program will open this fall, with classes starting in April of 2023.

The college and hospital said this is one more way to offset the healthcare worker shortage in the state, especially frontline nurses.

“Non-traditional students are, more so than traditional students, to stay at the bedside,” Callen said. “And that’s where the nursing shortage is occurring at the bedside. Traditional students tend to advance in the profession, and that would take them off the bedside.”

CAMC employs 1,900 registered nurses, and Vice President for Professional Practice and Chief Nursing Officer Heidi Edwards said there is a vacancy of about 200 bedside nurses.

“I say 200, just to say that if there were 300 out there today, we would take all 300 of them, because we can use them and our nurses need a break,” Edwards said.

Edwards said the nursing shortage didn’t start with the pandemic, and it won’t end with it either. She expects this issue to continue into the next decade.

COVID-19 hospitalizations are currently low, compared to the surges seen during the fall and winter. Edwards said nurses are able to take time off, but they’re also having to play catch up with elective procedures that have been delayed.

“It’s certainly challenging. It feels a little bit better right now, but our eyes are always open to the fact that we don’t know what’s coming. And we have to be able to function and be able to care for our community no matter what,” Edwards said.

Stroke Awareness Month: Recognize The Symptoms

A stroke can cause debilitating effects, and even death, when the brain doesn’t get enough oxygen. Every minute someone goes without medical attention can make things worse.

May is National Stroke Awareness Month, and health experts say quick action can prevent some of the worst outcomes of stroke.

A stroke can cause debilitating effects, and even death, when the brain doesn’t get enough oxygen. Every minute someone goes without medical attention can make things worse.

Recognizing the onset of a stroke and dialing 911 can save lives, said Clinton Wright, who leads the Division of Clinical Research at the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke.

“We just want people to recognize the symptoms and know that they should call 911, and not wait,” Wright said. “People think ‘I’m just gonna see if these symptoms go away,’ and then they’ve missed the window of opportunity to get those critical treatments.”

Education campaigns include what symptoms to look out for in yourself and others.

“The symptoms of stroke are usually sudden. And they’re things like numbness or weakness of the face, arm or leg, especially if it happens on one side of the body,” Wright said.

Almost 800,000 people have strokes each year in the U.S., but those who are older or have high blood pressure are at greater risk. So are Black people, who are nearly twice as likely as whites to have a stroke, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Southern and Appalachian people are at greater risk of stroke due the prevalence of smoking and poor diets. However, West Virginia has one of the lowest stroke mortality rates in the nation.

Appalachia Health News is a project of West Virginia Public Broadcasting with support from Charleston Area Medical Center and Marshall Health.

Marsh Describes New COVID-19 Subvariants

As COVID-19 cases continue to rise, state officials say the pandemic is nowhere near over.

Gov. Jim Justice is optimistic that the worst days of the pandemic could be behind us. But that doesn’t mean the virus is going away.

“I don’t think this thing is just miraculously going to evaporate, I think we have to find a way to live with this,” Justice said.

The nation’s leading infectious disease expert, Dr. Anthony Fauci, said the U.S. is likely out of the “acute” phase of the pandemic.

West Virginia’s coronavirus czar, Dr. Clay Marsh, said the omicron variant that caused a surge last winter has split off into multiple subvariants.

“There’s other forms of this variant that we see in the eastern part of the country, which are even more infectious and more resistant to our immune systems’ antibody effects,” Marsh said.

Marsh said getting vaccinated and boosted is the best protection. The state created an online tool that calculates when you’ll need your next vaccine shot.

Justice’s office said tens of thousands of West Virginians have used the calculator.

Anyone needing further help using the calculator can call the West Virginia COVID-19 Vaccine Info Line: 1-833-734-0965.

Appalachia Health News is a project of West Virginia Public Broadcasting with support from Charleston Area Medical Center and Marshall Health.

COVID-19 Cases Rising In W.Va.

Active COVID-19 cases in West Virginia have quadrupled in the past month.

Recently, retired Maj Gen. Jim Hoyer, who leads the state’s coronavirus response, attributed that bump to Spring Break and Easter travel, according to West Virginia University data. Hoyer said an increase in cases nationwide will soon catch up with the Mountain State.

“We will see some additional challenges going forward over the next couple of weeks,” he said.

Hospitalizations are gradually increasing. There are 50 more people in the hospital with COVID-19 than there were three weeks ago.

This week, President Joe Biden honored the 1 million U.S. residents who died from COVID-19, though the official count is just under that. Almost 6,900 people have died in West Virginia. The state has the fourth highest, per capita COVID-19 death rate in the nation, according to the New York Times.

An analysis from Brown university looked at how many of those deaths could have been prevented by vaccine uptake. The data show West Virginia has the highest per capita, vaccine-preventable deaths.

Appalachia Health News is a project of West Virginia Public Broadcasting with support from Charleston Area Medical Center and Marshall Health.