Earlier this year, Jeff Gambord realized he couldn’t remember the last time he had a physical exam. So he requested his medical record from Coalinga State Hospital, the psychiatric facility where he’s been a patient since 2006. Gambord learned it’d been more than a year, and he was curious if …
Read More »Deaths At Coalinga State Hospital: How We Conducted Our Investigation
Last year, 30 patients died at Coalinga State Hospital, a psychiatric facility in western Fresno County. That’s more than 2 percent of the population–a death rate that’s almost twice the average of California’s entire state hospital system, and almost seven times higher than the rate within the state prison system. …
Read More »Family of Coalinga State Hospital Resident Says They Weren’t Told He Died—Or That He Had COVID-19
In late December, Clementine Sanders called her son at Coalinga State Hospital to make sure he had received her Christmas card. That’s when his bunkmates informed her that her son, 58-year-old Shannon Starr, had died three weeks earlier. “I was just totally shocked,” she says. “Nobody called me.” Since then, …
Read More »Paramedics In Emergency Rooms, Long Hospital Transfers – How Ambulances Are Meeting COVID-19 Surge
With the latest COVID-19 surge, we know that hospitals are in crisis : Patients are being cared for in hallways and conference rooms, nurses and doctors are being forced to take care of larger patient loads than usual, and field hospitals are being opened to take care of those who …
Read More »Grim Milestones And Negative Airflow Hospital Rooms: COVID-19 Update For July 20-24
This week, California hit a grim milestone: it now has the highest number of COVID-19 cases of any state in the country, a record perhaps inevitable given that it is also the country’s most populous state. Nonetheless, hospitalizations and ICU rates continue to rise statewide, and here in the San …
Read More »Fresno’s Emergency Field Hospital Now At The Convention Center, Not The Fairgrounds
The Fresno Convention Center is the new site for an emergency field hospital, the county announced Friday. The effort is to take pressure off of local hospitals by treating COVID-19 patients whose cases are less severe. “At the end of the day we need to make sure our hospitals are …
Read More »Fresno Fairgrounds To Be Site Of Makeshift Hospital For COVID-19 Patients
The Fresno Fairgrounds will soon be the site of a makeshift hospital set up to treat potential COVID-19 patients whose cases are less severe. The effort is to take pressure off of local hospitals. “We want to prepare for the potential of this virus just having a tremendous impact on …
Read More »What California’s Transparent Hospital Prices Can And Can’t Tell Us About Actual Charges
If you or a loved one needed to go to the emergency room, how would you pay the bill? If you’re like most Americans, you don’t have huge cash funds socked away for a trip to the ER. Most of us are overwhelmed by the high cost of healthcare—and it …
Read More »Transparency In Hospital Pricing The Goal Of New Federal Law – But Will It Work?
When we talk about healthcare in this country, one of the most common complaints is the price tag—monthly prescriptions that chip away at retirement savings and emergency procedures that can cause bankruptcy. With a new law that just went into effect this month, the federal government is trying to tackle …
Read More »Stanislaus jury sentenced killer to death in 1986. He died at a hospital this week
Royal Hayes, sentenced to death in 1986 by a Stanislaus County jury for a double murder in Santa Cruz, died Tuesday at a hospital, prison officials said. Hayes, 81, had … Click to Continue »
Read More »It was a dumpy old hospital in Merced. Here’s what $31 million can do
Once a crumbling eyesore, the empty hospital south of Highway 99 is now a pristine space for Merced County Behavioral and Recovery Services following its grand opening Friday. The $ 31 … Click to Continue »
Read More »Clovis Hospital To Add 144 Private Beds
Fresno area hospitals are about to get bigger with an expansion planned for Clovis Community Medical Center. Next month, the hospital will begin construction on 190,000 square feet of new space. It’ll almost double the hospital’s inpatient capacity with 144 new beds—all in private rooms—and it’ll expand the emergency room, …
Read More »Victim shot by pellet gun in Merced transported to hospital
One person was shot by a pellet gun Sunday night in the 400 block of Cone Avenue in Merced, according to the Merced County Sheriff’s Office. The victim was transported … Click to Continue »
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