The children’s mobile immunization clinic, operated by Adventist Health and funded by First 5 Kern, has been around for decades — and on Wednesday morning, the medical team aboard was already busy with walk-in traffic in the parking lot of the Kern County Department of Human Services in east…
Hall Ambulance emergency medical technicians Jonathan Martin and Joshua Ovalle were on a call at a patient’s home.
Clinica Sierra Vista plans to open a 7,000-square-foot clinic Monday along Brimhall Road as part of a geographical expansion to meet the needs of customers in west Bakersfield.
The Grossman Burn Center will close June 30 following consistently low patient volumes, according to its host Bakersfield Memorial Hospital.
The California State Association of Counties honored Kern Behavioral Health and Recovery Services at the 2025 Challenge Awards in Sacramento on Wednesday.
Locally elected Republican Reps. Vince Fong and David Valadao expressed appreciation Feb. 11 for a federal move that effectively delayed significant changes to Medi-Cal until after the midterm elections.
California Rep. David Valadao has some explaining to do.
Kern Medical and UCLA are working on expanding their longstanding collaboration through joint clinical trials that could bring advanced treatments to the region and by strengthening local physician education and mentorships.
Changes to federally supported programs such as Medicaid and SNAP will start this year, but what exactly they’re going to look like is still to be determined and will depend on what the state is willing and able to fund on its own.
California health care advocates, labor unions and progressive lawmakers are urging the governor and the Legislature to find new money to fund medical care and other social services for millions of low-income and disabled Californians.
A Bakersfield obstetrician-gynecologist has been ordered to stop practicing medicine, at least temporarily, after he failed a competency exam following accusations of negligence.
Kern Medical announced Wednesday it has opened a state-funded pediatric emergency department offering specialized care for a population accounting for more than 10% of its emergency visits.
Suze Lopez kept getting the question you’re never supposed to ask a woman: Are you pregnant?
Starting in February, Kern County will be the first county in California to deploy new AI-powered electrocardiogram machines to more quickly detect heart attacks in patients in the field.
The gleaming-new four-story Thomas M. Hardt Tower stood tall behind him as Mercy Hospital President and CEO Simon Ratliff began his remarks at the tower’s dedication Thursday at Mercy Hospital Southwest.
The grand opening of a community health center Wednesday along Bolthouse Drive showed, once and for all, that there’s more to southwest Bakersfield than just Seven Oaks.
On a scorching summer day, dozens of farm laborers paused their work picking banana peppers in a remote field 26 miles from Fresno and filed into a pop-up medical clinic. It was a chance to pick up medication and take basic health assessments, such as blood pressure and glucose monitoring.
Health officials in Tulare County issued warnings about a rise in tuberculosis cases this week but Kern County Public Health said local risk remains low.
An upcoming deadline that will freeze Medi-Cal enrollment for undocumented immigrants has inspired a group of local organizations to spread awareness of the impending change, including through trips in November and December to Kern County’s outlying areas.
A pair of local initiatives announced this week are aimed at addressing the shortage of physicians working in the southern Central Valley.
Board-certified pulmonologist Dr. Hany Aziz has seen it all when it comes to patients struggling to obtain much-needed medical care for their or their child’s asthma or other respiratory illnesses.
By the time the Thomas M. Hardt Tower opens in December on the campus of Mercy Hospital Southwest, it will have taken more than 10 years of work, investment totaling $350 million and the combined generosity of some 620 individual donors.
Mary Kuhn went to the emergency room at John Muir Medical Center because it felt like she was having a heart attack. Her chest and jaw hurt. Her tongue was numb. Instead of confirming a heart attack, testing later ordered by a cardiologist revealed a shocking diagnosis.
A novel health-care project planned for Weedpatch Highway is bringing a Bakersfield hospital and a local manufacturer together with a Pennsylvania company to help underserved Medi-Cal patients.
One question remained after a grand opening celebration Monday at a new apartment community in northeast Bakersfield: Is it a housing project with a strong health-care component — or a health-care project with a strong housing component?
State government has established a new office in Bakersfield to help local agricultural operations comply with regulations intended to protect farmworkers from heat-related illness and other safety risks.
Several health care bills are now on the governor’s desk, aiming to improve access for Californians who can’t afford prescription drugs, shorten delays to medical decisions, and address threats to personal privacy.
Flu vaccinations will be offered free to adults later this month at locations around Kern County through the Dignity Health Community Wellness Program.
How CARE Court works Once someone files a CARE Court petition on behalf of a person experiencing psychosis, the county investigates that person’s diagnosis and then the court determines if they are eligible for the program. If they are, they have regular meetings with a case worker, as well …
The community of Boron in eastern Kern County is a little dusty to start with, as close as it is to a large open-pit mine, an active landfill and Edwards Air Force Base.
Officials at Cal State Bakersfield are celebrating the launch of the university’s second doctoral program in its 55-year history, a doctor of nursing practice.
An interactive website unveiled this week offers new detail on what kind of pollutants, at what quantities, scientists believe escaped into the air during certain oil-field leaks north and west of Bakersfield in the last decade.
Federal immigration agents are more routinely showing up at California medical facilities as the Trump administration ramps up deportations.
August is Valley Fever Awareness Month, but that’s not the only reason the Kern County Department of Public Health Services remains determined to spread awareness of the fungal disease that is endemic to Kern County.
County officials stressed that while programs are being scaled back amid budget cuts, essential services will remain even if how they’re provided changes.
Faced with increased costs and loss of funding from the state and federal governments, Kern County Public Health is looking to cut $3.5 million from its programing and end 35 positions.
Heather Altman quit her corporate job and opened an environmental consulting business in 2014 when the Affordable Care Act made it possible for her to afford independent health insurance. Her monthly premium for a platinum plan was $356.
Kern County’s first human case of the year of mosquito-transmitted West Nile virus has been confirmed, Kern County Public Health Services said Friday.
Local hospitals in Kern County, even small, rural ones, likely aren’t in immediate danger of closing due to changes in state and federal health care spending, but experts say the effects won’t be good.
The new federal budget signed into law by President Donald Trump is expected to raise some health care insurance premiums and force millions off coverage, reverberating the most in lower-income families and communities that are already struggling. Trump’s new budget reduces spending for Medi…
A new data dashboard focusing on Latino communities is confirming what many local groups already knew: Latino neighborhoods are more impacted by heat and air pollution.
Hall Ambulance hosted its first dual graduation Tuesday for 32 newly minted emergency medical technicians who completed on-the-job training through the Hall EMT Academy.
Kern Medical welcomed a new class of resident and fellow physicians, including six in a new general surgery residency program, all aimed at strengthening health care locally.
Four communities in Kern County are targeted for mobile air-quality monitoring vehicles that will collect pollution data, part of a new program in California.Â
It was mid-morning Monday at the Ming Avenue branch of Valley Strong Credit Union in southwest Bakersfield.
Cynde Soto, a quadriplegic who requires around-the-clock care, has been on Medi-Cal for most of her life. Recently, she came into a modest inheritance, about $8,000, that has helped cover her daily expenses. But it also means that she would lose her state health insurance under a proposal fr…
Two extraordinary acts of generosity received special honors Thursday with the naming of the Anand Family Birth Center and the Bhambi Heart and Brain Center at Mercy Hospital Southwest.
Bakersfield has been granted $22.8 million in state money to turn a hotel on Wible Road into a 65-bed substance abuse treatment facility to be operated by the county of Kern's Behavioral Health and Recovery Services Department.
The first in-person Kern County Economic Summit in five years veered Thursday from its previous focus on numerical forecasts to examine instead workforce preparedness and the need for proper health care to support local prosperity.
The Kern County Public Health Services Department released the latest data on valley fever at a news conference Thursday.
