6 days Ago By Annalise Freimarck
No one at the packed San Jose City Council meeting wanted the West Valley hospital to close or miss its seismic retrofit deadline, but numerous residents wanted city officials to hear their concerns about the company that owns the hospital. The San Jose City Council voted unanimously on Tuesday to approve the environmental impact report and rezoning of Good Samaritan Hospital’s 21-acre, $1.2 billion expansion.
Part of the deal includes an agreement where parent company HCA Healthcare contributes $3 million in commercial linkage fees toward housing and homelessness in the city. This came after an hour of public comments and Mayor Matt Mahan making it clear the hospital vote was strictly about the environmental report and needed infrastructure upgrades to ensure the hospital will be earthquake-safe by 2030 — and not in jeopardy of closing. Councilmember Pam Foley, whose district is home to Good Samaritan, said she understood residents’ concerns over HCA, especially since the company closed an 18-bed inpatient psychiatric facility at Mission Oaks and significantly reduced services at Regional Medical Center in East San Jose.
But she said the community can’t lose Good Samaritan. “In good conscience, I must do everything in my power to ensure that Good Sam stays open,” Foley said at the meeting. “If Good Sam closes because it cannot meet the (seismic) timeline, we lose access to critical health care resources.
How can I say to my constituents and the community at large, ‘Well, that’s HCA’s fault.’ How can any of us say that?” Foley’s District 9 will receive $1 million of the $3 million promised by HCA to use for emergency housing solutions in or near the district. The other $2 million will go to San Jose’s emergency temporary housing fund for permanent affordable housing development citywide.
Although $3 million is a drop in the bucket for a company that posted $65 billion in revenue in 2023, these dollars will help the city with its two largest problems: securing housing and services for homeless residents and building more affordable housing. In the current fiscal year the city has a $52 million budget deficit and as a result, redirected $25 million from Measure E — a property transfer tax for affordable housing — into homeless services and resources. HCA Healthcare has a history of closing facilities and services deemed not profitable.
It shuttered San Jose Medical Center, the city’s only downtown hospital, in 2004. It eliminated Regional’s maternity ward in 2020. It also cut trauma, stroke and heart attack services at Regional in August, which prompted Santa Clara County to purchase it for $315 million .
Darcie Green, Latinas Contra Cancer executive director and part of the Rescue Our Medical Care campaign, said the $3 million is not a solution to the problems HCA has caused. She said HCA has closed hospitals or continually divested from health care services that were not profitable. She added land use issues aren’t separate from health care and her organization was often left out of the conversation.
Related Stories “We will not rest until they are held accountable,” Green told San José Spotlight. “Tonight is just more inspiration for that and we need to keep pushing.” Green was one of more than 100 people who packed the council chambers, alongside Good Samaritan Hospital employees, doctors and nurses; construction workers in neon vests touting the potential jobs from the expansion; individuals speaking about life-saving treatment they received at the hospital; and others asking for HCA to restore the inpatient mental health services it closed.
HCA representatives said the company is looking into forming a community advisory committee by the first quarter of 2025 to help address concerns about mental health services at Good Samaritan. They added they were open to discussing the addition of more psychiatric beds. The hospital’s existing psychiatric services include partial hospitalization and intensive outpatient services where patients can receive up to 25 hours of care a week.
Pete Hillan, spokesperson for Good Samaritan who spoke on behalf of HCA, said the council vote was about land use. He said he’s grateful to all the people who came out to support the expansion. “They made the right decision for the community, for health care and for the future of how the community cares for itself,” he told San José Spotlight.
Good Samaritan’s expansion will include 750,000 square feet for two new hospital wings, 200,000 square feet of medical offices and two new parking garages, along with other ancillary buildings. The project will be completed in three phrases. The first phase will demolish a portion of the hospital and child care center to make way for a 7-story hospital wing and a 6-story parking structure.
It will take six years to complete the project. Dr. Harmeet Sachdev, director of Good Samaritan’s stroke center, said the stroke center is critical to the community and the expansion would help it.
“Good Samaritan has been the leader in stroke (medicine). In 2013, we became (one of the) first comprehensive stroke centers (countywide)” Sachdev said. “In 2024, myself and our stroke team, we are trying to meet everybody.
” But community groups want more from HCA after the decision. They have been vocal about the expansion, demanding the company set aside funds for San Jose residents affected by the slashing of services at Regional Medical Center. They also want inpatient mental health services restored to Good Samaritan Hospital.
David Mineta, CEO of Momentum for Health, one of 20-plus community-based behavioral health providers in Santa Clara County, said the behavioral health crisis is real. “We see this (crisis) everyday at Momentum. It touches everyone.
The community relies on the system of care, including our hospitals, to step up to this crisis,” Mineta said. “Closing an 18-bed inpatient unit is not stepping up to this crisis. This is not a knock on Good Sam but more a desire to meet the crisis.
We can do better.” Contact Annalise Freimarck at [email protected] or follow @annalise_ellen on X, formerly known as Twitter..
