Regional Medical Center, which operates one of just three adult trauma centers in Santa Clara County, has reversed course on its previous plans to close its trauma center on Aug. 12, and will instead remain open — but with fewer services than before.
The East San Jose hospital will downgrade its trauma center from Level II to Level III, which means it will no longer provide certain cardiac surgical services. It will also reduce its program that treats the most severe heart attacks, known as STEMI (ST-segment elevation myocardial infarction), but not end the program altogether as previously planned, by paring back its current 24-hour catheterization lab to daytime hours only.
The hospital, which treats about a quarter of the county’s trauma patients, will also scale back its stroke services from comprehensive to primary services, which generally means less specialized care. Emergency services will remain open and add 20 beds by 2025.
“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,” Matt Cova, CEO of Regional Medical Center, said in a statement Friday. “We’re pleased to have found a path that supports the revisions we’re announcing today.”
At the time, it originally announced plans to shutter the trauma center, in February, hospital executives cited decreased utilization over the last several years but did not provide specifics on how many fewer trauma patients it was seeing or why.
The decision drew sharp criticism from hospital staff, patient advocates and elected officials including Supervisor Cindy Chavez, who argued the closure would delay access to essential trauma services and potentially increase death rates. For months, they pressed California Attorney General Rob Bonta and the state department of public health to intervene.
On Friday, doctors and county officials said the hospital’s revised plans aren’t enough. Level III trauma centers typically serve rural communities and aren’t sufficient for densely populated areas like East San Jose, they said.
Dr. Raj Gupta, director of stroke and neuroscience at Regional Medical Center, called the revised plans “lip service.” Among his concerns are that the trauma center will no longer have a neurologist on-site for stroke patients, and that heart attack patients who come in after 5 p.m. will not have access to catheterization lab services.
“This is not acceptable,” he said.