RRH Partners With Kern County to Provide Free Drive-Thru COVID-19 Testing

Wednesday, May 13, 2020, RIDGECREST, Calif. - Ridgecrest Regional Hospital (RRH) is pleased to announce a partnership with Kern County to provide Free Drive-Thru COVID-19 Testing. Services will begin Friday, May 15 2020 and will be available by appointment only for drive-thru, no walk-ins. Full details regarding how to get tested, making an appointment, hours of operation and results will be released by RRH imminently.

The Drive-Thru COVID-19 PCR Nasal Swab Test service at RRH (1081 N. China Lake Blvd.) is part of the county funded program through which the Kern County covers the costs associated with outside testing, with RRH responsible for covering staffing and providing the testing supplies. The service will be available for free to anyone who wants to be tested, with no insurance or pre-authorization required.

“The ability to expand testing for Ridgecrest and our surrounding residents is what we have been pushing for,” said Jim Suver RRH President/CEO. “Now with the county’s support, we have the opportunity to give people the information they need about their health, which will ultimately help in our continuing efforts to ‘flatten the curve’. This will be a giant leap forward in our efforts to combat the virus and will be key to safely reopening our economy. I wish to thank Matt Constantine, Mick Gleason, Peggy Breeden, and Ron Strand for their support in making this happen.”

Brenda Diel, MS, RN, Administrator of Quality, Regulatory, Infection Prevention and Safety at RRH said, “Up until now, testing has only been available via physician referral and by meeting set CDC criteria for testing. For the first time since the pandemic began, we can now offer our local residents the ability to be tested regardless of criteria and regardless of insurance and that is going to be a huge factor in our accuracy and understanding of the spread of this virus in our community.”

“We are working hard to put the final plans into place with the aim of launching this coming Friday,” said RRH Clinic Administrator Michelle Whalley. We know that this will be welcome news to our community and more updates will be made available very soon.”

RRH continues to make regular updates to its dedicated COVID-19 website page at rrh.org/covid-19 and across the hospital’s social media pages.

# ENDS #