East San Jose hospital won’t close trauma center amid scrutiny

East San Jose may keep its only medical trauma center after all — just not in the same form.

Regional Medical Center — the private hospital owned by for-profit company HCA Healthcare — is walking back the planned closures of its trauma, heart attack and stroke care services which have kept residents alive in that part of town. The company announced today it would downgrade its Level 2 trauma center to a Level 3 center. It also says it’s “revamping” the acute heart attack program to feature around-the-clock cardiologist availability and a daytime catheterization laboratory. The stroke center will address the needs of “97% of stroke patients,” with the remaining cases managed and transferred to acute care providers, the company said.

County Executive James Williams said the hospital’s announcement still downgrades trauma, stroke and heart attack services to a dangerous degree, impacting mostly low-income and uninsured residents.

He also said the county was not formally consulted by Regional about the changes to its plan and that the hospital has to propose and obtain approval for these plans before announcing them.

“Regional would still be downgrading trauma, stroke and STEMI services, which would have a very negative and permanent impact on health care access in our most vulnerable communities. We remain concerned about the health and safety of our community, which will remain the county’s top priority,” James told San José Spotlight.

Patient advocates said this is not a win for the community. They said they weren’t consulted on the announcement either and that a Level 3 trauma center isn’t real emergency care and is usually designated for rural area hospitals — a far cry from the dense urban neighborhoods surrounding Regional.

“HCA did not communicate with the community or our ‘Rescue Our Medical Care’ campaign prior to making this decision — so there is still much to learn about the impact of this announcement,” Darcie Green, executive director of Latinas Contra Cancer, told San José Spotlight. “We know it’s not what we asked for. And we will continue to fight to make sure HCA is accountable to the community and residents of East San Jose.”

Maria Noel Fernandez, executive director of Working Partnerships USA, said the trauma center downgrade threatens lives.

“In densely populated areas like East San Jose, this downgrade effectively means losing emergency services entirely and we’ll continue to push medical care that reflects our needs,” Fernandez told San José Spotlight.

HCA executives said the decision was made with “extensive coordination” with local agencies, internal discussions, community outreach and analysis of the county’s impact report of the initial changes.

“We worked closely with our emergency services partners to ensure we will meet the evolving medical needs of our patients and the East San Jose community,” Regional Medical Center CEO Matt Cova said. “We’re pleased to have found a path that supports the revisions we’re announcing today.”

One thing remains unchanged: Regional is pushing forward with its emergency department expansion. The hospital plans to increase its emergency department capacity from 43 beds to 63 by next year.

Friday’s announcement comes after state health officials refused to intervene on Regional’s initial closure proposals at the request of county leaders and community activists. County doctors overseeing East San Jose residents’ next closest hospital, Valley Medical Center, publicly deemed the idea “dystopian.” They warned ending those services at Regional would overload county waiting rooms that are already full with dying or seriously ill patients.

Emergency response workers said the proposed closures would send life-threatening ambulance delays rippling across the region, since patients needing services no longer offered at Regional after August would either have to be transferred elsewhere or drive half an hour to VMC.

“The doctors and nurses at Regional Medical Center are integral and substantive members of our region’s health care system,” Dr. Priya Kumarvelu, incoming president of Regional’s medical staff, said in a statement. “Their dedication to provide extraordinary care, particularly with these updates to our critical care services, ensures the well-being of our patients and community.”

Contact Brandon Pho at [email protected] or @brandonphooo on X, formerly known as Twitter.