Health

A Kansas Senate committee will hear testimony Monday on a bill that would prohibit public health agencies from pursuing accreditation.

The bill was introduced by Wichita Sen. Michael O’Donnell. The freshman Republican has not yet explained the rationale for the bill.

Michelle Ponce, who heads the Kansas Association of Local Health Departments, says accreditation is a voluntary process to implement and monitor quality improvement.

“We’re really baffled by this bill, to be quite honest," she says.

A growing number of patients suffer from vertigo, an unsettling sense of one's environment spinning or moving.

Carol Taylor, 68, recalls the first time she had vertigo after a shopping excursion.

She had spent an entire Saturday shopping with friends, doing what they call "shop 'til you drop."

Which, she says, is exactly what she did when she got home.

"I found out later it was a vertigo attack," she says. "I went from an upright position to laying flat on the floor."

She was also sick to her stomach and extremely disoriented.

The Dodge City Family Planning Clinic is trying to withdraw from a lawsuit that challenges a state law that strips federal funds from family planning clinics in Wichita, Hays and Dodge City.

A filing with the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals Monday shows the parties have entered into an agreement to dismiss the Dodge City clinic from the suit. The clinic closed on December 31.

The move has no effect on the claims by Planned Parenthood of Kansas and Mid-Missouri.

Kansans with developmental disabilities and their caregivers have been among the most vocal critics of the new privatized Medicaid system.