NWPB Weekly News Now
Whitman County Whooping Cough, Idaho OB-GYN Shortage and WA Technical Colleges: August 6, 2025
8/6/2025 | 2m 29sVideo has Closed Captions
Weekly News Now Community Spotlight Hosted by NWPB Multimedia News Director Tracci Dial.
Whitman County faces a new whooping cough outbreak. Idaho loses 35% of its OB-GYNs after abortion bans. Washington invests $1.5M in trade school programs to meet growing demand.
Problems playing video? | Closed Captioning Feedback
Problems playing video? | Closed Captioning Feedback
NWPB Weekly News Now is a local public television program presented by NWPB
NWPB Weekly News Now
Whitman County Whooping Cough, Idaho OB-GYN Shortage and WA Technical Colleges: August 6, 2025
8/6/2025 | 2m 29sVideo has Closed Captions
Whitman County faces a new whooping cough outbreak. Idaho loses 35% of its OB-GYNs after abortion bans. Washington invests $1.5M in trade school programs to meet growing demand.
Problems playing video? | Closed Captioning Feedback
How to Watch NWPB Weekly News Now
NWPB Weekly News Now is available to stream on pbs.org and the free PBS App, available on iPhone, Apple TV, Android TV, Android smartphones, Amazon Fire TV, Amazon Fire Tablet, Roku, Samsung Smart TV, and Vizio.
Providing Support for PBS.org
Learn Moreabout PBS online sponsorshipA Washington County is back in outbreak status for pertussis, also known as whooping cough.
Whitman County had been outbreak free for three months before two cases were recently diagnosed and are being investigated as stemming from the same source or exposure.
All that according to Whitman County Public Health.
Whooping cough is a bacterial infection that's especially dangerous to babies under a year old.
It starts with cold like symptoms before developing into a severe cough.
Health experts say vaccinations are recommended.
For those details and other tips on protecting yourself go to NWPB.org.
A new study is out, peer reviewed and published.
Turns out Idaho has lost a net 35% of its obstetrics and gynecology physicians since the state's strict abortion bans went into effect three years ago.
More than 100 of those doctors stopped practicing, moved or retired between the bans going into effect in December of last year.
In that same time frame, just 20 of them were recruited to Idaho.
The study shows rural communities are feeling the brunt of the loss.
About 85% of Ob-Gyns practicing in Idaho now are in the state's seven most populated counties.
That leaves just over 20 OB-GYNs serving the rest of the state, where there's an estimated population of nearly 570,000 Idahoans in those more rural areas.
$1.5 million.
That's how much grant funding goes to trade programs in Washington every year.
As part of a program through the Washington State Board for Community and Technical Colleges.
It's a lot of money, but staff at the agency say they get double that in requests.
A dozen community and technical colleges were recently awarded shares of the total funding for this year.
They'll use it for things like buying spendy equipment.
“...But also, with redesigning curriculum so that their instructors know how to train students on that new equipment.” That's Carolyn McKinnon, who works for that state board.
The money comes from its Workforce Development Fund.
She says the agency is seeing more requests come in to fund things in trade training for things like renewable energy and electric vehicle repair.
Support for PBS provided by:
NWPB Weekly News Now is a local public television program presented by NWPB