Hospital work can be dangerous, and Gov. Gretchen Whitmer will soon sign laws meting out harsher punishments to those who assault health workers. Exempt from the penalties: patients who commit many of the assaults.
Robin Erb
Robin Erb covers health care and aging for Bridge Michigan, focusing on a state that is aging faster than most. She has led investigations tracking opioid settlement money and health care worker shortages, and previously spent six years at the Detroit Free Press covering the Affordable Care Act and Michigan's Medicaid expansion. She holds a master's degree from Lourdes University in Toledo.
Robin and her husband raised two children in southeast Michigan — and have failed miserably at training their Beagle-Bassets.
Posted inTalent & Education
Michigan’s draft population plan: Better schools, high-tech jobs, new taxes
Draft recommendations from Gov. Gretchen Whitmer’s population commission includes a laundry list of changes. And they’ll cost money.
Posted inMichigan Health Watch
Michigan effort puts new doctors in front of poor, underserved patients
Michigan needs primary care doctors in hundreds of underserved communities — rural and urban. Can a new Oakland County program help?
Posted inMichigan Health Watch
In Michigan, naloxone has reversed over 6,600 overdoses since 2020
Michigan spent $7 million this year from its slice of opioid settlement funds for naloxone, or Narcan, to reverse overdoses.
Posted inBusiness Watch
Michigan is spending to fill critical worker gaps. Here’s what’s needed
Some worker shortages hurt more than others, and state leaders are rushing to try to make it easier to fill vacancies from paramedics to special ed teachers.
Posted inMichigan Health Watch
For the holidays: Another batch of COVID tests for Michiganders
Michigan households can order another four free COVID tests, while the state continues to offer free at-home tests and testing sites, too.
Posted inMichigan Health Watch
Michigan has just half the child psychiatrists it needs amid health crisis
Child psychiatrists oversee the care and medication of some of the most complex mental health cases. And yet Michigan has only about half the specialists it needs amid a surge in anxiety and depression among young people.
Posted inMichigan Health Watch
Embattled Michigan health officer expected to get $4 million — to go away
Adeline Hambley has been fighting to keep her job as Ottawa County health officer. She clashed with conservative county commissioners in a battle emblematic of tensions across the country since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Posted inMichigan Government
Right to Life of Michigan lawsuit seeks to overturn abortion rights Proposal 3
Long-shot suit asks a federal court to overturn the abortion rights initiative approved last fall by 57 percent of Michigan voters.
Posted inMichigan Health Watch
Shortage of new RSV shots could endanger Michigan babies
A first-ever immunization against RSV for babies was approved with much hope in July; already, there’s not enough to go around, according to the state’s pediatricians’ group. That, and a flagging interest in flu and COVID vaccines, have some doctors worried.