Dec. 23—A health care crisis plaguing rural America has arrived in Kern County with the upcoming closure of Ridgecrest Regional Hospital's maternity ward, a move that will force expecting mothers to travel more than an hour each way to get specialized obstetric care.

The medical center's announcement this month that it will lay off 29 employees in February and March makes it the latest of dozens of hospitals in California, and hundreds across the country, that have been forced to shutter their labor and delivery units.

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