SANTA CLARA COUNTY, Calif. (KGO) — New developments from the South Bay: Santa Clara County announced the purchase of the Regional Medical Center in East San Jose late Wednesday afternoon.
The move will restore the area’s only trauma center and community members consider it a major victory.
Previously, a coalition of patients and stakeholders had campaigned for months to preserve the community’s only trauma center.
“Our community needs the trauma care center on the east side. There is no other trauma care there right now,” said Maria Noelle Fernandez, executive director of Working Partnerships, who helped form the coalition to preserve trauma care.
HCA Healthcare, the company that owns Regional Medical Center, announced plans to close the trauma center earlier this year, but then changed plans from a complete closure to a reduction in resources.
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A group of members of the San José community opposed a national hospital group’s decision to downgrade one hospital and expand another.
The hospital said the closure and changes were due to a decline in occupancy. This downgrade took effect on August 12.
But on Wednesday the district made its important announcement.
“The county and HCA Healthcare have entered into a tentative agreement for the county to acquire the Regional Medical Center in East San Jose,” Santa Clara County Executive James R. Williams said at a news conference.
The county now plans to restore not only trauma services, stroke and heart attack services, but also obstetric services, which were already discontinued in 2020.
The coalition that is committed to saving the services calls this a success.
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On Thursday, employees at San Jose Regional Medical Center held a march to express their concerns about the impending closure of the hospital’s trauma center in August.
“I think it was all the actions of the coalition, collectively using every tool at our disposal to say, ‘Not in our county,'” Fernandez said.
For now, the county and HCA Healthcare agreed on a price of $175 million.
This came months after the county restructured its budget to address a $250 million deficit.
“The good news is that we recently received significant reimbursements from FEMA related to our COVID-19 activity,” Williams said. “This is a once-in-a-lifetime resource that just came our way and will significantly help us fund the acquisition of Regional.”
The county said formal steps still need to be taken to complete the sale, including applying for licenses, obtaining state approvals and further negotiations on the final sales price.
Proponents hope that these steps will be taken urgently.
“We cannot allow this to take months,” Fernandez said. “It has to happen immediately because our lives are at stake.”
The district said it expects the closure to take place in the first quarter of 2025.
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