Green Valley’s only hospital closed Thursday due to financial strain and an inability to get this retirement community’s residents to go there for care instead of driving to Tucson.
The 49-bed Santa Cruz Valley Regional Hospital opened seven years ago and, on average, saw about 50 patients each day in its emergency room. But despite investing in specialists and equipment for serving older patients, CEO Stephen Harris said only about 15% of the people living there used it.
“We’ve been struggling since COVID,” he said. “Our whole rural health care infrastructure is collapsing.”
The Green Valley hospital buckled under its Medicare debt for money advanced to stay open during the pandemic, Harris said, adding they were paying back about $400,000 per month.
“In September, that would have gone down to $50,000 (per month),” he said, adding that the break just didn’t come quickly enough. “That, combined with nursing agencies charging so much, just knocked us to our knees.”
He said their one hope was to be bought out by Tucson’s TMC HealthCare but that plan fell through a couple weeks back.
“We have been working with TMC since November and we thought we had a deal with them,” Harris said. “However, they are having a bad year and they pulled out at the last minute, and we didn’t have time to find another buyer.”
TMC signed a nonbinding agreement to begin the due diligence process at the end of April, and then decided not to go forward with the purchase, said Julia Strange, vice president of community benefit for TMC HealthCare. She declined to elaborate on the reasons other than to say they “took the process very seriously.”
“I’m distressed and heartbroken that it’s closing in such a final manner,” said county Supervisor Steve Christy, whose district includes Green Valley. Christy said Green Valley is not alone in this, that many rural hospitals around the country are closing.
Strange said TMC HealthCare remains interested in providing outpatient services in the community but did not provide further details.
Harris is frustrated with TMC HealthCare because, he said, after the sale fell through TMC made and then broke a promise to hire all of his 200 full-time employees. He said he let TMC HealthCare do a job fair at his hospital last Friday contingent on that plan.
Strange said they have been trying to hire people for the positions they have open but cannot create new jobs just to take on the additional workers. She said TMC HealthCare is continuing to communicate with some of the Green Valley employees who recently lost their jobs.
