San Jose Medical Center Closes
San Jose Medical Center closed Thursday at 5 p.m., leaving the city without a downtown emergency department, trauma unit or hospital, the San Jose Mercury News reports (Feder Ostrov, San Jose Mercury News, 12/10).
On Nov. 29, ambulances stopped taking patients to the emergency department and its trauma center was closed in preparation for the facility's planned closure (California Healthline, 11/30).
According to the San Francisco Chronicle, the future of SJMC remains unclear. Reopening the facility as a hospital is not likely in part because it would cost between $50 million and $100 million to meet state seismic safety standards (Torassa, San Francisco Chronicle, 12/10). In addition, parent company HCA has said it would not sell the center to any buyer that would reopen the hospital or build another on the site, according to the Mercury News (San Jose Mercury News, 12/10).
HCA is expected to place the property on the market San Francisco Chronicle, 12/10).