Lakeland

Many Watson Clinic doctors will be on staff at the new Lakeland Highlands hospital when it opens in June 2026.

Part 2 in a series: After thousands of families lost Medicaid, many enrolled their children with complex needs in Florida Healthy Kids, a state insurance plan that wasn’t meant to cover their special care.

Lakeland delayed a hearing over the water issue until the Bartow workshop, which presented experts on both sides. Attendees included Surgeon General Dr. Joseph Ladapo, who wants to end fluoridation.

If commissioners vote to follow the guidance of Florida's surgeon general, Manatee would join more than a dozen other local governments to end the practice, including Niceville in the Panhandle.

HCA Florida’s two freestanding emergency rooms in Lakeland – one opens Dec. 23 – are part of a wave of new facilities in this Central Florida town.

After Surgeon General Dr. Joseph Ladapo came to Polk County and called fluoridation a “public health malpractice,” city commissioners said they would need to learn more before they could vote on the issue.

Founder Jason DeShazo, known locally as drag performer "Momma Ashley Rose," said the center will expand in early 2025 to encompass the other half of the building it's renting.

Faced with infertility, Christians who believe life begins at or around conception must wrestle with weighty questions related to beliefs and ethics. The dilemma reflects the age-old friction between faith and science at the heart of the recent IVF controversy in Alabama.

The clinic shares space with a MacDill Air Force Base health center, part of a growing partnership between the Defense Department and Veterans Affairs.

Katie Seeright's daughter, Adeline, suffers from Aicardi syndrome, which prevents the 6-year-old from being able to take care of herself.