When I joined the Watsonville Community Hospital board in 2022, I knew that saving our hospital from closing and bringing it back into public ownership was just the beginning.
We do this for our friends, family and neighbors—parents who need a safe place to have a baby, seniors who need care near home, families that need emergency care in the middle of the night.
The board took a hard but needed step on Oct. 28 to continue this work. We voted to seek new funds and support a stronger hospital, and we made arrangements in case those funds don’t arrive in time.
Our goal hasn’t changed: do all we can to save services and make our hospital sustainable. But we must also be ready to make hard choices so the hospital can stay open.
Our hospital is under great financial strain. We have about eight days of cash on hand. Daily, we are short about $85,000 before federal government funds that are owed to us arrive. Some of those payments have been long delayed. Without more funds or major changes, we will likely run short of money to pay staff next year.
New federal health rules are making things harder. Beginning Jan. 1, President Trump’s “One Big Beautiful Bill” will cut vital funds for Medi-Cal, the health program that thousands of our patients rely on. As a result, our hospital over the next two years expects to lose about $5.3 million for patient care, with more cuts possible.
Those numbers are serious. But we are not giving up. We have a plan, and we have reasons for hope. The Board directed hospital leaders to apply for $26 million in state aid for financially troubled hospitals. Some of the money could support maternity care and the neonatal intensive care unit (NICU). It could buy us another year to seek a lasting solution.
The plan would also help recruit more doctors, refresh and improve our planning and community engagement, and help people to get care closer to home. These steps will also increase the hospital’s revenue.
We will submit our application in early November and expect to hear back in December.
We are asking partners to help, too. We have asked Kaiser Permanente to invest $5 million annually for three years to support maternity care and the NICU. We also asked the California Nurses Association to give back union dues paid by nurses it represents at our hospital. We asked for all those dues in year one and half in each of the next two years. Those funds would support the same care.
These are real steps. But none of this money is committed yet. And even if we get it, we will still face the long-term gap between the cost of care and hospital revenue. We lose about $9.6 million each year providing essential maternity care and NICU services. This is why the Board also had to make a very hard choice.
We know what these services mean to families—especially our most vulnerable families. We must also protect our entire community’s access to emergency and other care our families and neighbors rely on. If we keep spending money we don’t have, we put the entire hospital at risk of closure.
That is why the Board voted to start the legally required 120-day public notice process.
We did not vote to close these essential services. The public notice process gives us time to hear from families and staff. During this time, we will seek more funds and work with other hospitals and partners. The Board must vote again before any service closure can take place.
In 2022, our community saved this hospital. Since then, voters have backed Measure N, we have made key upgrades to our building and medical equipment and our patient safety and satisfaction ratings are now amongst the best in the region. That progress shows what we can do when we work together.
We need that same spirit now, with patients, nurses, doctors, local leaders and health partners helping shape what’s next.
What can you do to help? Seek care here. Make a donation to the hospital at watsonvillecommunityhospitalfoundation.org.
We saved Watsonville Community Hospital once. Together, we can give it a stronger future.
