The Santa Cruz Regional Valley Hospital closed last week after years of financial trouble. Located 30 miles south of Tucson, it was the only hospital in the Green Valley.
The closure comes after TMC Healthcare, a leading healthcare provider in southern Arizona, withdrew its hospital acquisition last month.
TMC Health worked with the hospital on the acquisition for seven months before the hospital withdrew the acquisition.
“After careful consideration, we have made the decision not to proceed with the hospital acquisition,” TMC Health said in a statement. We continue to explore opportunities to provide much-needed medical services to the Green Valley community. ”
According to the Santa Cruz Valley Regional Hospital website: Seven-year-old hospital suspends all services Thursday at 12:00 pm. The 49-bed facility served Green Valley, Sawarita, Nogales, Liolico, Tubac, Amado, Patagonia and Sonoita.
On June 20, a Notice of Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act was issued, stating that 315 employees would be affected by the closure.
According to the state’s Department of Economic Security website, WARN requires “60 days’ notice to employers of covered factory closures and covered mass layoffs.”
Closure caused by ‘perfect storm’ of events
Pima County District 4 supervisor Steve Christie said there was a “perfect storm” of factors ranging from debt to patient shortages that led to the hospital’s closure.
Christie said many residents chose Tucson, which has state-of-the-art medical facilities, and Sahuarita, which is adjacent to Green Valley and has an 18-bed medical center that opened in 2020.
Even residents of communities as far south as the border town of Nogales often prefer to travel to Tucson, said Olivia Ainza Cramer, president of the Nogales-Santa Cruz County Chamber of Commerce.
“For Nogales and Rio Rico, our hospital is Holy Cross Hospital. Whenever they needed to get some other treatment they couldn’t, they were transferred to Tucson,” she said.
Representatives for Carondelet Network, which operates Holy Cross, did not respond to a request for comment.
of The Arizona Daily Star reported on July 2the hospital’s former chief executive, Stephen Harris, said only about 15% of people living in Green Valley use the hospital.
Another problem facing Santa Cruz Valley Regional Hospital was mounting debt. An article in the Daily Star reported that hospitals have fallen behind in paying back Medicare payments that were made upfront to keep hospitals open during the pandemic.
Christy said it was not surprising that TMC Health decided to back out of the deal given the recent economic downturn, frequent hospital management changes and the complex ownership structure of the medical complex. pointed out.
According to the GIS map of Pima County, multiple entities own the land with various buildings and hospitals.
Christy said plans for TMC Health to take over the hospital are a last-ditch effort to save the facility after years of financial troubles and ownership changes. After the deal fell through, he called the closure “heartbreaking.”
The hospital has a turbulent past
The Arizona Republic reported in May 2020 that Lateral Investment Management took over ownership in 2018 and gave the hospital its current name after coming out of Chapter 11 bankruptcy.
Then, during the COVID-19 pandemic, Arizona provided $3.6 million in temporary funding to Santa Cruz Valley Regional Hospital in May 2020 from the COVID-19 Crisis Emergency Response and Safety Net Fund. Closure due to declining revenues in the first months of the pandemic.
Hospital officials told the Daily Star that the hospital, which was estimated to cost $79 million to build, experienced “turmoil and financial mismanagement” in its early years.
Before the facility was built, there were no hospitals or emergency rooms in the area, and residents had to drive about 30 minutes to the ER.
“It’s very sad because we opened in 2015 with very high hopes and high expectations,” Christie said. I think it shows the
Christie said there was no word on what would happen to the complex that housed the hospital.
Hospital administrators could not be reached for comment.
Southern Arizona coverage on azcentral.com and The Arizona Republic is funded by Report for America, a nonprofit affiliated with The Republic.
Please contact the reporter at sarah.lapidus@gannett.com.
