Health

The chief medical officer at New Hampshire Hospital is planning to step down at the beginning of 2017, New Hampshire Department of Health and Human Services Commissioner Jeffrey Meyers announced Monday afternoon.

Dartmouth-Hitchcock plans to lay off hundreds of employees after a poor financial performance last fiscal year.

In an email sent to Dartmouth-Hitchcock employees, CEO James Weinstein said the company needs to shave $100 million dollars in annual expenses to achieve financial stability. The company finished last fiscal year with a $12 million dollar deficit.

New Hampshire Gov. Maggie Hassan is asking the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to accelerate its consideration of competing products to the EpiPen after a big increase in cost for the allergy treatment.

Hassan sent a letter to the FDA on Monday asking it to accelerate its review and work to ensure that safe and affordable generic versions of the treatment are able to come to market "as quickly as possible."

The Environmental Protection Agency is accusing one of New Hampshire’s most prominent real estate developers of breaking two federal lead paint laws. It’s the latest in a string of public health complaints against Brady Sullivan Properties. 

The EPA wants Brady Sullivan Properties to pay close to $140,000 in fines. 

  The latest numbers from the New Hampshire Office of the Chief Medical Examiner show that at least 161 people have fatally overdosed so far in 2016.

Officials are anticipating that those numbers will continue to rise in the months ahead, and the state is projecting at least 494 overdose deaths by the end of the year. 

Despite some controversy over a contract, today Dartmouth-Hitchcock officially takes over operations at New Hampshire Hospital, the state’s only psychiatric hospital.

Dartmouth has come under heavy criticism from some of the outgoing psychiatric staff at New Hampshire Hospital; they say Dartmouth wasn’t willing to have a fair conversation with them about salary and compensation, and they’re skeptical Dartmouth is ready to care for the patients currently at the state hospital.

Health Commissioner Jeffrey Meyers disagrees. He approves of Dartmouth’s bid to run NH Hospital.

The New Hampshire Insurance Department is looking for 12 to 15 people to advise the commissioner on access to substance abuse treatment and other behavioral health services through private insurance.

The Executive Council has voted 5-0 to allow Dartmouth-Hitchcock to take over managing the state psychiatric hospital in Concord, June 30. But a core group of psychiatrist staff refuse to work with Dartmouth-Hitchcock. 

Residents with private wells near the Saint-Gobain Performance Plastics plant in Merrimack filed two class action cases Wednesday against the company. Saint-Gobain is the likely source of water contamination in the area, according to state officials. 

Dartmouth-Hitchcock health care system has been discussing a potential affiliation deal with Elliot Health System, a smaller provider serving southern New Hampshire.

The Valley News reports D-H executive vice president Stephen LeBlanc confirmed that the discussions were underway, but he declined to say what form the affiliation might take. 

The Department of Environmental Services has referred an illegal dumping case involving Brady Sullivan Properties to the New Hampshire Attorney General's office for review. 

In 2013, Brady Sullivan Properties was responsible for moving more than 600 tons of contaminated soil from a Manchester mill yard to a gravel pit in Londonderry.  Groundwater below the dumping site is contaminated with PCE, a chemical linked to cancer.

Drinking water from private wells in northern New England may increase the risk of bladder cancer, according to a new study from the National Cancer Institute, Dartmouth and the state health departments in New Hampshire, Maine and Vermont.

Working on a tip from a confidential source, federal and state regulators investigated how piles of asbestos-laden debris ended up in Lawrence, Mass. outside a building owned by Brady Sullivan Properties, one of New Hampshire’s largest real estate developers.

The question of whether to continue New Hampshire's expanded Medicaid program has been one of the top State House policy debates this year.

But it's something local governments are mulling over as well. In City Halls across the state, officials say the program has led to some significant savings: in the slice of taxpayers’ money set aside for medical and prescription aid, and indirect savings in other areas.

The New Hampshire Attorney General’s investigation into marketing practices by large pharmaceutical companies hit a roadblock this week. The Attorney General wants to know if those companies have been deceptively marketing opioids - drugs that have been diverted in mass quantities to fuel addictions and overdoses. But a court order now slows down that process.

A state website that helps people compare prices across healthcare facilities relaunched this week with an expanded library of medical procedures and new information on hospital-quality measures.

The new version of NHHealthCost.Org features 31 additional medical procedures, including physical therapy, behavioral health and chiropractic care. Cost estimates for 16 dental procedures are now available, as well as new information on the retail price of 65 brand-name and generic drugs.

State officials have confirmed the first case of Zika virus in New Hampshire.

A New Hampshire woman got Zika from having sex with a partner who had traveled to a country where the virus is being transmitted by mosquitos. The state says she's now in good health.

Still, officials are reminding people of Zika's potential danger to pregnant women because the virus is feared to cause birth defects.

A state health official says the state is monitoring after a study found a cluster of cases of a rare form of a pediatric cancer in southeastern New Hampshire.

State Epidemiologist Dr. Benjamin Chan says they didn't find any behavioral or environmental risk factors deemed a contributor to the "small excess number of cases."

The report published last month was launched after a child in Rye was diagnosed in early 2014. The study found less than five cases in the area over a decade. That's still higher than average. The study didn't indicate a link.