The closure of East San Jose’s solely trauma heart places all the Santa Clara County public hospital system in jeopardy and threatens the survival of east aspect residents struggling a coronary heart assault, stroke or different catastrophic medical occasion.
That was the unequivocal warning from county docs at an emergency listening to on Wednesday. The listening to earlier than the county Emergency Medical Companies Company comes greater than a month after Regional Medical Heart — owned by the corporate HCA Healthcare — introduced plans to shut its trauma, stroke and coronary heart assault providers by Aug. 12, citing monetary pressure.
County docs mentioned the closures might trigger a 70% surge in trauma sufferers, or about 2,600 instances per 12 months, being admitted to the ill-equipped and under-resourced Santa Clara Valley Medical Heart (VMC) eight miles away. They worry the closure might break the county medical system.
“The proposed closures are in contrast to something I can keep in mind,” Dan Nelson, chair of Valley Medical Heart’s Emergency Medication Division, mentioned at Wednesday’s listening to. “Working in a serious city emergency division with out OBGYN, GI, interventional cardiology, complete stroke providers, trauma and neurology is totally dystopian.”
Nelson and different hospital division leaders mentioned the closures will disproportionately have an effect on the county’s most susceptible residents. That features these with out insurance coverage who already depend on the county’s hospital system, which has endured years of scrutiny over employee shortages, outdated gear and months lengthy waits for essential scanning and diagnoses at VMC.
But just a few residents confirmed up on Wednesday to listen to these warnings.
“I assume I’m the one one from the neighborhood right here,” East San Jose resident Edgar Pimentel mentioned on the listening to. “I don’t suppose the neighborhood is aware of what’s actually occurring. I believe there could be much more folks right here in the event that they did. Closing down these providers — it will likely be loopy for everyone.”
Santa Clara County docs attended an emergency assembly pertaining to the closure of the trauma heart at Regional Medical Heart in East San Jose. Photograph by Brandon Pho.
Time saves lives
Regional sits on the intersections of Highways 101, 680 and 280, and is one in all solely three trauma facilities in Santa Clara County — Stanford College Medical Heart and Valley Medical Heart in San Jose are the opposite two. However docs on the listening to mentioned most sufferers within the county will go to VMC as a result of it’s the closest.
District 5 San Jose Councilmember Peter Ortiz, who represents the place Regional is situated, mentioned his mom who just lately had a coronary heart assault wouldn’t have survived had she been compelled to make what might have been a 22-minute ambulance journey to VMC.
There’s been a scarcity of communication to the neighborhood relating to Regional’s service reductions, Ortiz mentioned, however residents are beginning to mobilize and plan to attend the Santa Clara County Board of Supervisors assembly on April 16 to talk on the difficulty.
“I’ve deep considerations about how this may impression the residents of East San Jose, as a lot of our residents have power well being circumstances like diabetes and hypertension and likewise battle to accumulate well being protection,” Ortiz advised San José Highlight.
HCA has a status for putting income over sufferers. In San Jose the multibillion-dollar company has been systematically closing providers that rely too closely on Medicare and Medi-Cal sufferers as a result of decrease revenue margins. In 2004, HCA closed San Jose Medical Heart, town’s solely downtown hospital. In 2020, the company shut down the maternity ward at Regional Medical Heart, which had a right away impact on East San Jose residents. In 2023, HCA shuttered its acute care psychiatrist providers and neonatal intensive care unit at Good Samaritan Hospital in San Jose.
Restricted choices
Nelson mentioned two different hospitals within the county system, O’Connor and St. Louise, depend on Regional to take sufferers requiring specialised medical care that they’ll’t present.
“With Regional unable to just accept these sufferers — and conversely contributing to demand — sufferers could also be stranded with out entry to look after even longer intervals,” Nelson mentioned. “This will even lead to extra ambulances being known as for extra emergency facility transport.”
Praveen Anchala, chair of the radiology division at VMC, mentioned CTs, MRIs and X-rays are already operating at full capability on the hospital 24/7, and are unable to suit extra sufferers into the radiology system. Increasing their capability requires house, time and money — none of which might occur in lower than six months with no severe county response.
“The amount inflow we expect to see can’t be overstated,” Anchala mentioned on the listening to. “The numbers we’ve got seen are fairly staggering.”
Nannette Logan, chief working officer at Regional Medical Heart, blamed the service reductions on decrease affected person quantity, elevated useful resource calls for and elevated regulatory necessities.
“We perceive these modifications could have an effect and in some instances could even be tough,” Logan mentioned on the listening to. “Nonetheless we encourage those that converse immediately to please acknowledge that we’re making these modifications so we will proceed to look after our neighborhood’s well being and sustainability for the long run.”
Regional is going through the identical challenges because the county hospital system in retaining medical staff with out breaking the financial institution to compete with wages supplied by different personal hospitals, based on Regional Trauma Medical Director Richard Kline.
“This isn’t a selection that anybody desires to make and if there’s a technique to change this, if anybody has concepts, come up and open the dialogue,” Kline mentioned on the listening to.
Contact Brandon Pho at [email protected] or @brandonphooo on X, previously often known as Twitter.