Dr. Stephen Wall couldn’t have come to Waynesville at a better time. 

“There were four pediatricians in Haywood County, and three of them retired all at the same time,” said Wall. “So Dr. Bob Earnest recruited me and another guy, Dr. Garnet Maharajh, to join Haywood Pediatrics, which he started two years prior, in 1987.”

Education, litigation, big pharm, little children, doctors, disease, disability, death — the debate surrounding vaccination thrives at the intersection of some of the most contentious topics of the day.

It’s an emotional subject, to be sure, but it’s also one of the most rigorously vetted and empirically analyzed, owing to the scientific nature of medicine. 

By now, most everyone is familiar — often far too personally — with the toll of the opioid epidemic. Lost lives, stolen futures, vanished trust. Loved ones transformed into unrecognizable ghosts of themselves. Law enforcement, mental health and emergency services pushed past capacity. 

Plans to construct a new Angel Medical Center in Franklin moved forward last week after the town planning board approved a special-use permit for the replacement hospital. 

The Haywood Healthcare Foundation has put nearly half a million dollars back into the community since August 2014 when Haywood Regional Medical Center was sold to Duke LifePoint.

There’s perhaps been no greater ideological clash in American government over the past century than the extent to which the individual, as opposed to the collective, should be prioritized. 

Only $80 stands between Sylva resident Carrie McBane and affordable health care coverage. If she made $80 less she would qualify for Medicaid in North Carolina, and if she made $80 more she would qualify for subsidies through the Affordable Care Act. 

Carrie McBane of Sylva was at the end of her rope a year ago. She knew something was wrong and needed to go to a doctor but she didn’t have health insurance. 

There’s a good reason President Lyndon B. Johnson traveled to Independence, Missouri on July 30, 1965, to sign the legislation that created Medicaid — he wanted to present the first membership card to former President Harry S. Truman. 

Truman had long been a backer of socialized medicine, inheriting the position from his Oval Office predecessor Franklin Delano Roosevelt, who established a number of social safety net programs during his 12 years as chief executive.

In a ceremony held at the Cherokee Indian Hospital today, the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians was awarded the Redefining American Healthcare award from the Healthcare Leadership Council.