For decades, hospitals have strained to accommodate patients in psychiatric crisis in emergency rooms. The horror stories of failure abound:

Patients heavily sedated or shackled to gurneys for days while awaiting placement in a specialized psychiatric hospital, their symptoms exacerbated by the noise and chaos of emergency medicine. Long wait times in crowded ERs for people who show up with serious medical emergencies. High costs for taxpayers, insurers and families as patients languish longer than necessary in the most expensive place to get care. 

A Florida suburb is being plagued by thousands of poisonous toads. 

Faced with the possibility of paying $14.7 million, R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co. has gone to the Florida Supreme Court in a case stemming from the death of a 56-year-old man who had lung cancer and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. 

Puerto Rican families displaced by Hurricanes Maria and Irma can get free counseling at the newly opened UCF Restores clinic. The clinic located at the Episcopal Church of Jesus of Nazareth is staffed by therapists sensitive to the needs of the community. 

In an issue stemming from a legal dispute in South Florida, the Senate on Thursday overwhelmingly approved a bill that would prevent local governments from regulating homeowners’ vegetable gardens. 

Choeun Nuon traveled from her home in California to a Miami-area cosmetic surgery clinic to have a so-called Brazilian butt lift in February 2017. Instead of recovering after the procedure, the 32-year-old mother of two began slipping in and out of consciousness. 

Emergency room staff at AdventHealth in Kissimmee and Orlando will ask patients about feelings of hopelessness or despair as part of routine assessments over the next year and a half. 

A Florida law mandating that hospice and palliative-care physicians check a statewide database to ensure patients aren’t shopping around for opioids is “stupid,” state Rep. Cary Pigman said Thursday. 

The Florida House on Thursday began trying to sweep away controversial health-care regulations, approving a bill that is a top priority of House Speaker Jose Oliva, R-Miami Lakes.