Among the heartbreaking stories revealed in “The Desert,” a KQED documentary premiering on July 10, is the plight of Epigmenio and Angelica.

They are an elderly, low-income couple, both of whom are cancer patients. Because there is no public hospital in their West Contra Costa County city that can handle their needs, they must devote nearly a full day every month to travel — via three different buses — to a hospital in Martinez for their appointments.

That’s the kind of physical toll that they, and many of their fellow West County residents, must pay since the closing of Doctors Medical Center (DMC) in San Pablo in 2015.

Directed by UC Berkeley journalism professor Bo Kovitz, “The Desert” is the latest installment in KQED’s “Truly CA” series, which showcases  independent short documentaries about life in the state. It offers an intimate look into the devastating impact that the closing of DMC has had on its community.

The facility, which stood for 60 years, was the only full-service public hospital for more than 250,000 primarily low-income residents in West Contra Costa County.

Following patients and frontline workers on the ground, Kovitz’s film reveals the multifaceted impact of the loss of a major safety-net institution as those in the community travel further and most overcome various barriers to healthcare.

At one point in the film, Aimee Skaggs, a West County paramedic, addresses the excessive ambulance transportation times — often upwards of a half hour — required to deliver patients to distant medical facilities. She notes that, with the closure of DMC, the Richmond-San Pablo area lost a STEMI center crucial to treating heart-attack victims.

Says Skaggs of the time-and-distance urgency: “It really makes or breaks whether people are debilitated for the rest of their lives.”

In a statement posted on the film’s online page, Kovitz says, “When I began research about Doctors Medical Center, it struck me that it’s not rare in our country for a hospital to close. I read about hospitals closing in rural communities and others moving out of poor, predominantly black and brown neighborhoods into richer ones. I wanted to capture the lived experience and deepen our understanding beyond just reading words on a page. I wanted to see and hear the faces and voices of the people directly impacted by the loss of an institution so many of us take for granted.”

“The Desert” is available to view on the Truly CA website, as well as the KQED Arts YouTube page and the KQED Video app..