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Rendering courtesy of Good Samaritan Hospital
Care-Raising Story: This artist's rendering shows the proposed addition to Good Samaritan Hospital.
All three area hospitals plan major expansions
None of the three will offer expanded pediatric care
By Nathan R. Huff
Large expansions in their respective fields of expertise are in store at all three South Bay hospitals. But none of the medical facilities scheduled for renovation will focus on the pediatric care issues recently raised by advocates for a children's hospital.
Columbia/HCA, the parent company of Good Samaritan Hospital, announced a $68 million expansion plan that will create a new women's center with a large increase in beds and private rooms. New cardiovascular services are also planned.
The Good Samaritan project is coupled with the consolidation of Columbia's San Jose Medical Center with the Regional Medical Center of San Jose. The $148 million overhaul will expand emergency and trauma services, and also increase the capacity of the center's childbirth facilities. SJMC will close because of cost-prohibitive retrofitting requirements, according to a Columbia spokesperson.
Finally, Community Hospital of Los Gatos has proposed an expansion as part of its revised Master Plan. The hospital has applied for Los Gatos planning department approval to modify its conditional use permit and initiate a four-phase plan. The first phase focuses on a new radiation oncology center.
Good Samaritan CEO Bill Piché said the timing of the expansion was related to both the robust economy and the increased demand for services. Good Samaritan turned away more than 900 admissions last year. The hospital delivered 427 babies in March alone.
Piché said Columbia's choice to focus expansion on maternity and cardiovascular services was based on the success and reputation of the programs, as well as industry trends. "I think the reality of managed care and technology pushing more work to an outpatient setting means hospitals have to concentrate on their core services," Piché said.
Maternity services will be the focus of Good Samaritan's new women's center. Postpartum beds will increase by 10; newborn level III intensive-care beds by 17; newborn nursery by 30 and the percentage of private rooms will jump from 20 to 65 percent.
The plan, titled "Project 35" for the hospital's 35th anniversary, also includes two new cardiovascular operating rooms, bringing the total to four, and the overall number of operating rooms to 14. Expansions for Good Samaritan and Regional Medical Center of San Jose will both include unfinished spaces for future medical services, as Columbia sees fit.
Community Hospital of Los Gatos' own expansion will not occur as quickly as Good Samaritan's. When all four phases of the plan are completed, the hospital will have a new radiation oncology center, new beds, more medical offices, expanded parking and a three-story nursing wing.
According to a spokesperson, Community Hospital's expansion and renovation is badly needed. Despite the hospital's good reputation, he said, facilities are old and in need of repair. As part of the plan, the hospital will slowly close off access from W. Parr Avenue, as stipulated by its CUP from Los Gatos. The revised master plan is now being reviewed by the town's conceptual development advisory committee (CDAC).
Neither Good Samaritan nor Community Hospital of Los Gatos plans to increase its emergency pediatric care. "Pediatric utilization rates are falling," Piché said, "and people are getting older." According to Piché, demographic studies predict that 75 percent of Good Samaritan's service area residents will be over 45 years old in five years.
Dr. Richard Fox, a pediatrician at the forefront of the children's hospital drive, said the hospital expansions brought no significant new resources to area children and would not affect the push for a dedicated children's hospital.
"Our position is [that] what the town needs is one good comprehensive children's hospital," Fox said. "These plans do not represent a full-service children's hospital."
The hospital's supporters have raised close to $175,000 for a needs assessment study and have a commitment for another $150,000 from a local high tech company. Los Gatos Mayor Steve Blanton also created a Mayor's task force to study the issue and report back to the town.
Children's hospital activists argue that parents in the San Jose area--the only city of the nation's 50 largest not to have a children's hospital--are without adequate care. Stanford's Lucile Salter Packard hospital is too long a drive for South Bay residents, they say. The group, named the Silicon Valley Children's Hospital Foundation, is now assembling a board of directors and bringing families aboard as future hospital members.
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Willow Glen, California Since 1992
