Healthcare, 'R.I. Memories' and climate change

What’s happening to Rhode Island’s health-care system?

Today’s first installment of G. Wayne Miller’s “State of Health” series answers a piece of that question: Wayne finds major problems in the state’s behavioral-health and addiction services, prompted by a change in the way they’re funded.

But — typical of Wayne’s work over the years — he doesn’t tell the story with eye-glazing statistics and arcane mumbo-jumbo. Instead, he finds the human story at the heart of it, both in the written tale and the video version that lives online at providencejournal.com/stateofhealth.

The story of Erika Krueger and her 7-year-old son, A.J. Soto, is the kind of tale Wayne has been telling about health care for decades, both in his journalism in The Providence Journal and at providencejournal.com, and in the four books he’s written about medicine.

Along with this wealth of experience now also come new connections to national experts. Wayne has made them through Story in the Public Square, the effort that’s a partnership of The Providence Journal and Salve Regina University’s Pell Center for International Relations and Public Policy. As co-host of public television’s nationally broadcast show of the same name, he has access to big thinkers in many fields — and that enhances his work for us.

They’re connections that no other media outlet covering Rhode Island can touch.

As we launch this series, we have lots of ideas about stories to tell, and ways to help you navigate the sometimes bewildering system of health care in Rhode Island. And we’d like to hear your ideas, too.

Please let us know your questions about Rhode Island’s health-care system by emailing healthcare@providencejournal.com. We’ll try to answer as many of them as we can in upcoming stories.

‘Rhode Island Memories II’ progress report

Readers have responded to our call for photos for “Rhode Island Memories II: The 1940s & 1950s,” our sequel to last year’s successful book that spanned the late 1800s to 1939.

Our public scanning sessions ended last week with readers bringing in 210 photos, adding to 59 we’ve received so far online. We also have hundreds more from our partner historical organizations and our own archives.

It’s not too late to submit your own photos from the ’40s and ’50s. The deadline for online submission for "Rhode Island Memories II" is this Wednesday, April 24. Just go to www.pediment.com/apps/upload/rhode-island-memories-ii-history-book.

Want to order the book? Go to RhodeIsland2.Pictori­alBook.com, where the pre-order price is $29.95, $15 off the regular price.

Lively discussion of climate change

It was energizing to have 375 people turn out Monday for our Publick Occurrences forum “Climate change: the search for solutions.” They nearly filled Rhode Island College’s Sapinsley Hall to hear — and ask questions of — our panel of eight scientists, journalists and community activists.

The discussion was passionate, both on the panel and in the audience, and people lingered long after the two hours were over, talking about the issues and what they’d heard.

My thanks to RIC; Leadership Rhode Island, whose Mike Ritz was the talk-show-style moderator; the panelists; and everyone in the audience.

We’ll do this again in the fall, with the topic of solutions to Rhode Island’s education crisis. I hope you’ll join us.

— Alan Rosenberg is The Journal’s executive editor.

(401) 277-7409

arosenberg@providencejournal.com

On Twitter:

@AlanRosenbergPJ