The exterior of Regional Medical Center in East San Jose
Santa Clara County will close its $150 million purchase of Regional Medical Center from HCA Healthcare on April 1. File photo.

Santa Clara County officials have finalized their $150 million purchase of Regional Medical Center from private corporation HCA Healthcare, which depleted the hospital’s services over the years. But the hard work to make it whole again is just beginning.

County officials are racing against the clock to restore the gutted trauma care services by April 1, the day the sale closes, followed by heart attack and stroke care at yet to be determined dates. They’ll also have to hold ample town hall meetings for community input on what services to restore before others, hire back enough staff while in a budget deficit, and do it all without opening new rifts with their hospital workers.

County Executive James Williams said there’s much work to be done between now and April.

“We’ve also publicly committed to restoring labor and delivery services that were cut in 2020,” Williams told San José Spotlight. “We will need some time to be in there, operating Regional, to develop an appropriate timeline to bring back those practices since they were shuttered so many years ago. But right now there’s a lot of work to do between now and April to take over the operations.”

Restoring Regional’s downgraded level 3 trauma center to a level 2 will require new licensure approvals from the state — and that can take time. The county needs to get an electronic medical record system up and running and onboard the hospital’s 1,000 workers into the county employee system. The county will also have to hire additional staff to revamp the care HCA reduced over the years.

Williams said it’s still unclear how many new hires the county will need. He added the county expects to fill some staffing gaps with existing employees at the county’s other hospitals, as well as contract workers.

The idea worries Allan Kamara, an emergency department nurse at Valley Medical Center. He said he’s heard concerns from members of his union, the Registered Nurses Professional Association, that nurses will be asked to float up to Regional to help out. The issue fueled nurse strikes last April.

“VMC is already so short staffed due to the service cuts at Regional that have already occurred. Our ER is inundated with patients,” Kamara told San José Spotlight.

Rachel Ruiz, a pediatric gastroenterologist at VMC and president of the county physicians’ union, said physicians have signaled their readiness to travel to Regional and help keep service lines open.

“We know we’re up against higher stakes — we have a national physician shortage and our group wants to make sure the culture of Regional Medical Center is part of the county’s,” Ruiz told San José Spotlight.

Kamara and Ruiz agreed the county’s purchase of Regional is the right move. They see it as an exciting moment for East San Jose. They just hope the county has learned its lessons from six years ago.

When county officials bought three near-bankrupt hospitals in 2019, they promised thousands of workers at O’Connor Hospital in San Jose, Saint Louise Regional Hospital in Gilroy and DePaul Medical Center in Morgan Hill they could keep their jobs. But workers said the county reneged on that pledge once it took over — fueling early months of “chaos.”

Williams said the county is more prepared this time around.

“We do have experience to draw on in terms of the steps that are needed. We’re of course taking lessons learned from that prior transition,” he told San José Spotlight.

In the span of a year, East San Jose went from possibly losing most of its care to seeing more health care options than it’s ever known, according to Dr. Raj Gupta, a neurologist and medical director of Regional’s stroke center, who risked his job speaking out against the company’s cuts.

While he agrees trauma care is the first step, he said the stroke center is still in need of neurosurgeons. He said at some point the county needs to restore gastrointestinal care and care for kidney failure and disease, as well.
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“I think these two services will be very vital besides your usual emergency services, critical care doctors, surgeons. We’re looking forward to working with the county,” Gupta told San José Spotlight.

Darcie Green, executive director of East Side patient advocacy group Latinas Contra Cancer, said she looks forward to the community laying out its vision at future town halls.

“Patients can come up with beautiful, innovative and reasonable ideas to deliver health care — we just need to listen,” Green, who helped lead protests against HCA last year, told San José Spotlight.

Contact Brandon Pho at [email protected] or @brandonphooo on X.

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