On the heels of Black Friday, Small Business Saturday and Cyber Monday, Tuesday is the day to turn your attention to the more needy in our community.
Giving Tuesday urges holiday shoppers to redirect some of their money to worthy causes.
“GivingTuesday was born and incubated at the 92nd Street Y and its Belfer Center for Innovation & Social Impact in New York City,” according to GivingTuesday.org. “GivingTuesday is now an independent nonprofit and a global movement that inspires hundreds of millions of people to give, collaborate, and celebrate generosity.”
One of the many deserving agencies in the Tampa Bay region is Angels for Change. The nonprofit works to end drug shortages.
“The work that we do here means that no patient will go without the medicine that they need and that every doctor will be able to do the work that they train to, which is save patients,” said Laura Bray, the organization’s founder and chief change maker at Angels for Change . “And they don’t have to worry about whether the drug is available. There will be plenty just in case. To make sure all patients have what they need.”
Bray founded the group after her 9-year-old daughter was unable to get a treatment drug for her fight against leukemia. It was on a 15-month wait.
Flu, RSV cases increase 500 percent, creating a new headache for health care
Flu and RSV infections are surging across the nation and in Florida, leading to a fear that their numbers will add to the Covid-19 caseload to create a triple-demic of airborne infections.
Flu cases alone are above 6 million nationwide.
“It’s been infecting people in Florida really since early in the fall,” said Dr. Joseph Puccio, executive director of the University of South Florida’s Student Health Services. “We’ve seen over the course of the last four to six weeks the number of students being infected with the flu has significantly increased.”
Epidemiologists worry that the three diseases could overwhelm the hospital and health care systems.
“These three can cause significant illness or a more severe infection in certain populations,” said Dr. Fernando Bula Rudas, a specialty physician at John Hopkins All Children’s Hospital in St. Petersburg.
