Healthcare

Healthcare

With her 1-year-old son, Adriel, on her hip, Herrera Ceja leafed through a stack of medical bills on the kitchen table, amounting to nearly $4,000 she owes for a hospital visit in January, when the baby got sick at the evacuation center. "We all got sick from the dampness, but the little one had it the worst," she said.

When patients are of the same race or gender as their provider, they may also have better health outcomes, research shows. For example, in a study of 1.8 million infants born in Florida hospitals between 1992 and 2015, Black newborns were half as likely to die when cared for by Black physicians as when their doctors were white.

An examination room at the Alternatives Pregnancy Center in Sacramento on June 1, 2023.(Miguel Gutierrez Jr./CalMatters)In California, less than two-thirds of counties have an abortion clinic.But nearly 80% have at least one "crisis pregnancy center," according to a database compiled by CalMatters.

The test results come less than two weeks after the FBI confirmed it has launched a joint investigation with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency into the Martinez plant's spent catalyst release.FBI agents and EPA personnel have gone door to door asking residents about their experience during and after the incident.

Pham said he generally learned how to manage his symptoms, but was often overwhelmed with paralyzing fatigue.He eventually tried to return to work full-time, as the head of sales of a Bay Area start-up, but found it nearly impossible to get through the day."I was passing out in the middle of the day after one or two meetings and it would cause and trigger my long COVID symptoms," he said.

"They can be tiny, they can be small, or they can be nestled inside larger industrial facilities, and so it's not something that strikes you, like a generator or a refinery," said Williams."But the problem is what they're doing there: They're boiling vats of toxic metal-water solution."

San Francisco police officers look on near a controversial billboard that warns against fentanyl on April 4, 2022, in San Francisco.(Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)



Gov. Gavin Newsom and Mayor London Breed are doubling down on law enforcement to get a grip on drug-related challenges in San Francisco's city core.

A California Highway Patrol car stands guard at the Golden Gate Bridge toll plaza on Nov. 2, 2001, in San Francisco.Gov. Gavin Newsom is utilizing the California Highway Patrol and the National Guard to fight the city's fentanyl crisis.(Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)



A new team of officers from the California Highway Patrol and the California National Guard will step in to train and assist San Francisco Police in disrupting fentanyl dealing and trafficking, Gov. Gavin Newsom announced Friday.

Tracy Evans, AIDS/LifeCycle senior director
Tyler TerMeer, San Francisco AIDS Foundation CEO


Something Beautiful: Youth Takeover and Mount Diablo This week, we have a guest host: a high schooler who is a member of KQED's Youth Advisory Board.All week, KQED has been including young people in our programming, as part of our commitment to education and engaging with our community.

Ratepayer advocates have accused SoCalGas of a litany of transgressions, including lying to regulators, undermining efficiency standards and funding seemingly independent advocacy groups to push its agenda.(INA FASSBENDER/AFP via Getty Images)



SoCalGas, the nation's largest natural gas utility, billed a ratepayer account more than $1 million to support a successful legal challenge against Berkeley's first-in-the-nation law banning gas hookups in new buildings.

Jackie Schalit, a children's mental health clinician at the hospital and part of the union's bargaining team, says staffing in her department has been slashed in half under UCSF's leadership, with a growing number of programs squeezed, shut down altogether, or relocated to offices in San Francisco."We love the population that we work with.