After four plus years of empty offices and waiting rooms and a
few false starts, the old Saint Louise medical office building is
finally waking up.
“It’s coming back to life,” Joe Mueller told a pleased City
Council at a recent meeting. “There are patients in the halls (of
the DePaul Health Center).”
After four plus years of empty offices and waiting rooms and a few false starts, the old Saint Louise medical office building is finally waking up.
“It’s coming back to life,” Joe Mueller told a pleased City Council at a recent meeting. “There are patients in the halls (of the DePaul Health Center).”
Mueller is chair of the Morgan Hill Community Health Foundation, set up by council to bring medical services back to the community after Saint Louise Hospital closed and moved to Gilroy in 1999. He and Joanne Allen, senior vice-president at O’Connor Hospital, were there to spin a tale of success before five council members and residents watching the live broadcast at home.
“Eleven of the 15 suites are occupied or reserved,” Allen said.
That is a 70 percent occupancy, Mueller said. He was thrilled to see the offices and waiting rooms filled and said there is more to come.
“However,” he said, “it is important that more patients arrive.”
Without a strong patient base, the physicians and services won’t be able to afford to keep their doors open and the town will, once again, be without medical services.
DePaul is on Cochrane Road just east of Highway 101.
New to the area and DePaul is Dr. Nimisha Shah, an internist who opened her office and provides a variety of services as an internist.
Two cardiologists and a neurosurgeon already established and an orthopedic surgeon and a pediatrician are getting ready to move in. Brian Joyce will move his family practice from The Villas on the grounds to the MOB.
Joe Kraut Jr. has kept his oncology practice in the cancer unit behind the hospital.
In the services area, Fritter, Schulz & Conlan, a physical therapy group, has moved up from Concord Circle and a diagnostic imaging unit could soon join them.
“We are in discussion with two groups for ambulatory/urgent care and a sports medicine group,” Mueller said, “and we will continue.”
Suite 202 is a timeshare which several physicians can share; most doctors are not in town every day and this way, Mueller said, the costs are kept down and the variety of medical specialties can go up.
Finally, RotaCare has moved its Bay Area administrative offices to the building. RotaCare is a series of clinics started by Rotary clubs to provide medical services to low-income people. The clinic will be open one night a week. The website – www.rotacarebayarea.org – will be updated as soon as details become available.
Mueller said the Daughters of Charity, who own the Morgan Hill building, and Saint Louise and O’Connor as well, have engaged an architectural firm to do a feasibility study looking at the possibility of more outpatient services including radiology and laboratories.
One potential blot on a rosy future for the DePaul Center is a nearby medical building where physicians and service units buy their office space instead of the more usual rentals. DePaul will be renting its space.
The Venture Professional Center will be built by Venture Corp. in the Morgan Hill Ranch business park, south of Cochrane Road and just west of Highway 101.
Robert Eves, president of Venture Corp. expects his low-interest loans or lease-to-buy program will attract doctors who want to own their own office space. But the two facilities could be competing for high-return services, such as MRI and radiology units, without which, O’Connor officials say, DePaul could not survive as easily.
Mueller said the conference room, so popular with local groups during the 10 years Saint Louise was open, is once again available for health education classes and lectures and for community groups as well.
“Physicians will give a health education series this fall,” Mueller said, “and Leadership Morgan Hill has already had a meeting there.”
Mueller did not know whether the magazines in the waiting areas are new, too.
“But,” he said, “the facility is coming back to life – call the doctors for an appointment.”
