MORGAN HILL
– Almost three years after Saint Louise Regional Hospital left
town and the medical office building emptied of doctors and
laboratories, the medical facility has a real chance at new
life.
MORGAN HILL – Almost three years after Saint Louise Regional Hospital left town and the medical office building emptied of doctors and laboratories, the medical facility has a real chance at new life. It also has a new name: DePaul Health Center.
A team from O’Connor Hospital, headed by Joanne Allen, a senior vice president, told the City Council Wednesday that the medical office building will soon be almost bursting at the seams.
O’Connor is also actively looking for partners to provide medical services in the main hospital building – short of a full acute-care hospital – and talking to urgent care centers and developers who want to build a 100-bed assisted living center next door to the hospital.
“I can’t tell you how exciting this is,” Mayor Dennis Kennedy said. “I am very pleased.”
The O’Connor team was introduced by Joe Mueller of the Morgan Hill Community Health Foundation.
“This is a validation of the commitment that the City Council and the citizens have made by contributing to the foundation, keeping the facility usable as a medical facility,” Mueller said.
O’Connor took over responsibility for the center from Saint Louise Regional Hospital in Gilroy – they both are Daughters of Charity hospitals – in July because it had greater staffing and financial resources available to revive medical services in the buildings.
Allen’s presentation focused on four aspects of the site. The medical office building was reopened in August 2002 and limped along with very minor use. Now, she said, O’Connor is signing leases with physicians and they are moving in.
“We expect to be fully leased by July 2004,” Allen said, “which means 90 percent occupancy.”
She said Dr. Brian Joyce wants to move into the medical office building from The Villas, portables on the site where he has his office. The physical therapy group, Fritter and Schultz will move in before the end of the year, and O’Connor is completing discussions with nine interested physicians plus two who are about to move from Kentucky.
“We are looking at a strong primary-care base with selected specialists,” Allen said. She said it was possible for several physicians to time-share in one office suite if they will only be on site one or two days a week.
Laboratory services and basic radiology should be installed within six months.
While the South Valley is not large enough to need a second full acute-care hospital, Allen said O’Connor is working on renovating the main hospital building and is actively looking for partners in adjacent services, including the Lucile Packard Center at Stanford Children’s Hospital, children’s hospitals in Oakland and Fresno and Kaiser Permanente for behavioral services.
“We are excited about bringing pediatric services to the site,” Allen said.
Two developers and architect Barry Swensen are talking with O’Connor about building an assisted living facility next to the hospital building; it is currently zoned for a 100-bed facility.
And, finally, a fourth leg is a possible urgent-care facility on the site, a service which Morgan Hill has been without since July 2002. Next week, the team talks to Kindred Healthcare, an acute care company based in Louisville, Ky.
