Health

12 Wisconsin counties have placed referendums before their voters this November to ask the Walker administration to accept federal Medicaid funds. The program in Wisconsin is known as BadgerCare. Chippewa county is the latest to hold such a referendum and Lincoln county has already joined in.

Tuesday, the Oneida county board will consider whether to become the next county to take the issue to a referendum.

The Resolution was sponsored by the Board of Health. Health Department Director Linda Conlon details what the county board will consider....

Residents in Ontanagon County Michigan will soon have more access to medical transport.  Aspirus MedEvac is establishing a paramedic ambulance service near Ontanagon Hospital. 

SONCO Ambulance will continue to serve the area. 

But as Aspirus EMS and MedEvac Operations Manager Robert Kirkley explains, the new paramedic services offer a higher level of care when the situation calls for it.

School districts are preparing for changes in some of their menus…thanks to new federal nutrition guidelines for snacks that take effect this school year. 

Rhinelander Food Service Director Pat Karaba says the new rules mean less sodium and more whole grain ingredients.  And snacks must also be limited in their portion sizes and calories. 

“Say we sold Doritos or snacks along those lines or cheetos.  Those would no longer fall into that category.  So we could not sell them this coming school year.”

The DNR has confirmed the presence of blue-­green algae located in Pelican Lake in eastern Oneida County.  The algae appears in late summer and can be a health hazard for humans and animals. Oneida County Registered Sanitarian Jody McKinney talked with Ken Krall about the problem. 

McKinney says seek immediate medical help from a doctor or veterinarian if people or pets are exposed to blue­green algae.

Rhinelander School District has landed two sizable grants to help pay for a new athletics trainer position at the high school. 

Ministry Medical Group and the Aspirus Clinic have each donated $15,000 to the school district’s athletic program. 

Athletics Trainer is a role that Rhinelander native Eric Prom has been filling for a few years now, but until now he’s been employed by Marshfield Clinic.  Now he’ll be an employee of the school district.              

A Star Lake woman has died, after helping rescue a group of kids from drowning. 

47-year-old Karen Wessel was walking Tuesday with two other women and four children…along Trampers Trail of East Star Lake. 

According to one of the surviving women, the group stopped for a swim and three of the kids began to swim across a channel that runs between the shoreline and a sandbar further out in the lake. 

No one likes to think about it, including, apparently,  the medical community...

".....not sure how accurate this statistic is, but of the entire Internal Medicine department here at the Minocqua Clinic, only 20 to 30 percent  have their Advanced Directive filled out...."

A woman and child have been hospitalized after nearly drowning in Star Lake in Vilas County Tuesday. 

Shortly before one o’clock Tuesday, the Vilas County Sheriff’s office received a 911 call reporting two adult women were trying to rescue three children swimming in Star Lake. 

The women apparently rescued two of the children without incident, but when rescuing the third child, one of the women went under the water, along with the child.  A family friend arrived on a boat to pull them out of the water. 

Public health officials have made a strong impression that pregnant women should not drink or possibly harm their unborn child. Now an effort to have women cut out smoking during pregnancy is also underway.
Called "First Breath",  health workers hope to get the nearly one-in-four Oneida county women who smoke while pregnant to stop.

Public health nurse and program coordinator Dawn Klink says both mother and child feel the results of smoking...

Two bats in Vilas county have been diagnosed with rabies in the past week and a Vilas county health official cautions the public to make sure pets are vaccinated.

Rabies is an infectious disease affecting the nervous system of mammals, including humans. People and unvaccinated animals can get rabies from an infected animal. If caught soon enough in humans, it can be treated, but if left untreated, it is almost always fatal.