Sarah Fentem
Health ReporterSarah Fentem reports on sickness and health as part of St. Louis Public Radio’s news team. She previously spent five years reporting for different NPR stations in Indiana, immersing herself deep, deep into an insurance policy beat from which she may never fully recover.
A longtime NPR listener, she grew up hearing WQUB in Quincy, Illinois, which is now owned by STLPR. She lives in South St. Louis, and in her spare time likes to watch old sitcoms, meticulously clean and organize her home and go on outdoor adventures with her husband Elliot. They have a dog named Ginger.
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HSHS hospitals, including O'Fallon's St. Elizabeth's, are restoring power after a cyber attack caused outages for weeks. Such attacks are becoming more common as health systems rely more on interconnected servers, experts say. -
Officials on Monday announced Washington University's Transgender Center at St. Louis Children's Hospital would no longer offer puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones or surgeries to minors, even those who are exempt from a newly enacted ban on treatment for transgender youth.
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Three government-run health clinics in St. Louis County serve patients who can’t afford treatment elsewhere. But the health department has faced rising costs and staffing shortages. A new plan would garner the department millions more in federal funding each year.
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Many St. Louis-area residents recognize "The Way," Laumeier Sculpture Park's bright red five-story steel sculpture. Since artist Alexander Liberman constructed it in 1980, the piece has been corroded by weather, visitors and birds.
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The St. Louis County Department of Health will soon distribute the opioid overdose reversal drug naloxone for free at county public libraries. Visitors can ask library employees for naloxone, and librarians will distribute it with no questions asked.
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A growing number of people are testing positive for the coronavirus, but Missouri scientists say the virus still poses a smaller threat to residents than during the height of the pandemic.
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In a letter Wednesday to Missouri Department of Social Services Director Todd Richardson, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services assessed how well the state is complying with rules for disenrolling people from health insurance programs for poor and disabled people. The average person calling the social services helpline had to wait 48 minutes to talk to someone.
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Owners of South City Hospital in Dutchtown, previously known as St. Alexius, announced last week they were closing the 178-bed location.
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Between 2018 and 2020, more than 200 women in Missouri died during pregnancy or in the year after giving birth, according to a state health department report released this week. The number of deaths has increased since the 2022 report. The number of deaths from suicide and firearms increased, and Black women were three times as likely to die during or after pregnancy than their white counterparts.
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SSM Health is shutting down its trauma center at DePaul Hospital in Bridgeton, the last state-designated trauma center in north St. Louis County. SSM Health officials say it's because so few patients who come to the hospital ER need trauma services, but advocates and EMS workers say the decision could put patients with life-threatening injuries at risk.
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Two of the largest health systems in Missouri earlier this year announced plans for a $10 billion merger. Experts said that won't necessarily benefit patients when it comes to prices and quality of care.
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Wash U researchers have developed a microwave-size box that uses electrodes and a “wet cyclone” to detect coronavirus particles in the air within five minutes. The scientists say the prototype could be fitted to detect other pathogens and bacteria, as well.
