Florida hospital executive Doug Duffield will take the top post at San Joaquin Community Hospital, as its new president and CEO starting July 15.
Duffield's hiring comes four months after former CEO Robert Beehler left the hospital for a corporate position with Adventist Health amid an ongoing Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services investigation that threatened San Joaquin's agreement to treat Medicare patients.
The investigation, paired with construction delays, held up the opening of The AIS Cancer Center at San Joaquin Community Hospital, which began seeing patients in April.
Duffield, 43 and the father of two girls, has worked as president and CEO of Florida Hospital Zephyrhills near Tampa for the last four years, according to...
Bakersfield Heart Hospital is seeking women living with heart disease to attend a national training program and in turn lead a local support group for other women. The hospital will choose two applicants to attend the WomenHeart's annual...
Houchin Community Blood Bank’s supplies are suffering as the summer unfolds, dwindling to the point that the blood bank has had to request blood from other facilities. The blood bank has tapped sister blood banks around the state for O-...
A growing demand for milk and cheese in China has the potential to bring California's beleaguered dairy industry back to life --- and with it, renewed concern about its damaging effects on the environment. As China's middle class grows,...
After a long wait, 13 Kern County employers large and small have been picked for a national worksite wellness program tied to health care reform. Kern is one of only eight counties in the nation that was selected for the Centers for...
The California Office of Statewide Health Planning & Development is releasing reports today comparing more than 300 hospitals' quality of care based on a dozen different conditions and procedures. The report titled "Hospital Inpatient...
NEW YORK -- The federal government on Monday told a judge it will reverse course and take steps to comply with his order to allow girls of any age to buy emergency contraception without prescriptions. The Department of Justice, in the...
When Deanna Brown lost her job and thus her health insurance last December following a year of chemotherapy, she feared her cancer treatments would end as well. What Brown had thought was strep throat two years ago turned out to be Hodgkin...
Physician residents at Kern Medical Center, who have been hailed as key to securing new doctors for the community, protested canceled labor negotiation meetings and low pay Tuesday. "Kern County is unfair, all we want is our fair share,"...
Q: I'm a Medicare recipient. How are people like me affected by Obamacare? A: This is no small question. We're talking more than 50 million Americans and a program that spends more than $500 billion a year. Medicare is the federal health...
Cigarette butts filling three and a half 10-gallon jugs have been collected over the past four years in parks around Kern County. And just this May, volunteers picked up 15,888 individual cigarette butts. Each May 31, the World Health...
Kern County Public Health officials advised people to check their freezers for a certain brand of frozen berries after a Hepatitis A outbreak that's sickened people -- but not in Kern County. About 30 cases of Hepatitis A in five...
California's tally of valley fever cases dropped by more than 1,000 last year and some counties have also seen fewer cases in the early months of 2013. But public health officials say it's too early to identify long-term trends in the...
Sheriff's office: Man who died in custody had drugs in throat (17)
A 25-year-old man who died in Kern County sheriff’s custody Monday night had two plastic baggies with illegal drugs stuffed in his throat, the department reported.
Silva family files federal claim (11)
The family of David Silva announced Friday it has filed its long-expected federal civil rights claims against the Kern County Sheriff’s Office, six sheriff’s deputies and a sergeant, two California Highway Patrol officers, the county and the state alleging excessive police force killed him.
CSUB awards Haggard, Owens top honors (9)
He’s Dr. Merle Haggard now. The bad-boy hero of the rebel strain of music that put Bakersfield on America’s cultural map half a century ago did something Friday he hadn’t done since he was 9: He sat still in school.
Key green light for California high-speed rail (5)
SACRAMENTO -- The California High-Speed Rail Authority won approval Thursday from a federal railroad oversight board to start construction this summer on the first leg of what would be the nation's first bullet train.
Local attorney arrested in shooting of his wife
A Bakersfield attorney’s rocky marriage, marked by a divorce suit and a history of loud, public arguments, reportedly erupted into violence early Wednesday morning when police say he turned a gun on his wife and fired.
Coroner's office identifies woman found dead in garage
A woman found dead in a southeast Bakersfield garage Tuesday was identified Friday as 18-year-old Mia Ramirez of Bakersfield.
Sheriff's office: Man who died in custody had drugs in throat
A 25-year-old man who died in Kern County sheriff’s custody Monday night had two plastic baggies with illegal drugs stuffed in his throat, the department reported.
Freeway opening just around the corner
At long last, Bakersfield officials see light at the end of the freeway.