San José Leaders Approve $1.2 Billion Overhaul of Good Samaritan Hospital Despite Concerns

San José leaders on Tuesday night unanimously approved a $1.2 billion proposal from a private firm to build two new wings at Good Samaritan Hospital on the city’s west side, despite concerns about the for-profit hospital owner’s controversial record of cutting services or shuttering facilities at its properties when profits drop.

While HCA Healthcare — the largest private hospital operator in the country — said the new facilities at the hospital are needed to comply with heightened state earthquake safety standards, some council members, residents and patient advocates were apprehensive about approving a massive project for a company that has reduced critical health care options across the city in recent years.

The move comes after HCA last year announced plans to close its trauma center at Regional Medical Center hospital in East San José while also cutting its severe heart attack and stroke services — a decision it walked back slightly after prolonged protests.

Councilmember Peter Ortiz, who represents the community that hospital is located in, was among those pushing to defer Tuesday’s vote by a month to allow more time for discussion about a community benefits agreement that would “safeguard the health of residents” and ensure HCA would be a good partner going forward.

“We’re at this juncture because HCA, a Fortune 500 company, has consistently cut services in the name of profit,” Ortiz said during the meeting.

Ortiz ultimately voted to support the environmental review and rezoning to allow the new Good Samaritan buildings because he said he needed to do what’s right for health care in the whole community.

But he accused HCA of creating a two-tiered health care system: one for residents in wealthier parts of the city, the other for those in poorer areas, by cutting critical services in East San José while expanding and investing heavily in West San José. He also said the company was “fear-mongering” by suggesting that delaying the decision could result in Good Samaritan having to close down entirely because it wouldn’t meet state earthquake safety deadlines.

“I’m troubled by the rhetoric implying that failing to pass this rezoning, especially when we were just going to postpone it a month, would result in Good Samaritan to close,” Ortiz said. “In my opinion, that’s fear-mongering of the worst kind, and you guys should be ashamed of yourselves.”

However, Councilmember Pam Foley, who represents the area where Good Samaritan is located, said the choice was clear for her.

“If Good Sam closes because it cannot meet the 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?” she said. “Let’s be perfectly clear. A vote against rezoning today is a vote in favor of closing Good Samaritan.”

HCA’s proposal entails a three-phase project to build 750,000 square feet of new hospital space across two buildings and a new 200,000-square-foot medical office while demolishing the hospital’s main building, which does not meet the state’s new seismic safety standards that go into effect between now and 2030.

The project also includes a 24,000-square-foot central utility plant and two large parking garages totaling nearly 700,000 square feet. In all, the project is set to take about six years to complete, with shovels set to hit the ground in 2025.

In a deal hammered out ahead of Tuesday’s meeting, outlined in a memo from five councilmembers, HCA agreed to kick in $3 million as a sweetener to support affordable housing citywide and emergency interim housing in the area around the hospital.

“Your decision today is about protecting the patients that rely on Good Sam, a vital community resource, and enabling us to meet the state-mandated 2030 earthquake compliance deadline,” Jackie Van Blaricum, the head of HCA’s Far West division, told the council.

“While we may not see eye to eye on everything, surely we can agree that losing an entire hospital’s services is not in the community’s best interest,” she said.

Labor representatives and construction workers, along with former Good Samaritan patients, doctors and other hospital staff, all spoke in support of the project on Tuesday night.

Gopi Ayer, the chief of staff at the hospital, said while concerns from the community are “legitimate,” they should be saved for another time.

“This is what we need to do today,” Ayer told the council. “If we don’t go ahead with this, it will be like cutting off our nose to spite our face, and that is not a good bargain.”

In the memo, council members said the major benefits to the city from such a project should not be overlooked, including increased property tax revenue and about 1,000 construction jobs, in addition to the ongoing jobs at the hospital.

HCA’s announcement in early 2023 that it would close the trauma center at Regional Medical Center sparked an outcry among residents and health care workers, who said shuttering the only such trauma center on the East Side of the county would have life-threatening consequences.

After months of protests, the hospital slightly reduced its planned cuts and Santa Clara County officials later announced the county would move to purchase the hospital and fold it into the public health care system, with plans to eventually restore cut services.

Some residents also recalled how the company cut labor and delivery services at the Regional Medical Center in 2020. And in 2004, it closed San José Medical Center shortly after buying it.

Other residents and mental health advocates also noted that HCA last year, citing a lack of staff, cut a 21-bed inpatient psychiatric services program at Mission Oaks Hospital in Los Gatos, which served Good Samaritan patients who needed acute mental health treatment. At the same time, it also closed Good Samaritan’s pediatric intensive care unit.

“I’m not against the development. I am against allowing HCA, the company, a blank check to worsen our quality of life and create health inequity where it otherwise wouldn’t exist in this city,” Darcie Green, the head of local health nonprofit Latinas Contra Cancer, told the council.

Green said the council should have required the company to work with residents and advocates to come up with a plan to restore services and “create a patient protection fund, which is a very reasonable and fair ask given the harm that’s been caused.”