Renovation of once-closed doctors offices into a center for
same-day surgical procedures is under way. The South Bay Surgery
Center, located at 16130 Juan Hernandez Drive, is scheduled to open
in October and be fully operational by the end of the year.
Renovation of once-closed doctors offices into a center for same-day surgical procedures is under way. The South Bay Surgery Center, located at 16130 Juan Hernandez Drive, is scheduled to open in October and be fully operational by the end of the year.
The center will give a definite boost to the availability of medical services, noted Councilman Steve Tate.
“This is wonderful news,” Tate said. “It will give people here in Morgan Hill a lot more options.
The facility is planned to be a state-of-the-art surgery center with two operating rooms.
Outpatient surgeries such as knee, shoulder, foot and hand operations, sinus surgeries, colonoscopies, gynecological procedures, pediatric care and general surgical procedures will be offered. The center is limited to surgeries that do not require overnight hospitalization.
It is anticipated that South Bay Surgery Center will be able to help 15 to 20 people a day with outpatient surgery needs. The outpatient surgery center will be operated through a partnership of nine area physicians and MedBridge Development, a Santa Barbara-based medical facility development and management company.
The only doctor identified at this time is Ted Roussere, a Morgan Hill general surgeon in Morgan Hill since 1989. The other doctors in the project currently have offices in south San Jose, Morgan Hill and Gilroy.
“It’s an important addition for the health care of people in Morgan Hill,” Roussere said. “We don’t have a place here for these procedures.”
Roussere currently has offices in the center.
Dave Odell, MedBridge president, said the doctors and his firm are currently leasing the offices but may seek an option to buy in the future. He estimated cost of the renovation and purchase of medical equipment would be in excess of $2.5 million.
Following the closure in December 1999 of Saint Louise Hospital, many doctors moved their offices to Gilroy. In addition, the offices staffed by San Jose Medical Group physicians, on Hernandez Drive north of Tennant Avenue closed in July 2003.
The new surgical center has attracted the notice of officials at DePaul Health Center in the former hospital building at Cochrane Road and U.S. 101 and Saint Louise Hospital in Gilroy where similar facilities are planned.
DePaul backer O’Connor Hospital still has plans to open a similar surgical center at the former Morgan Hill Hospital. No timetable has been established.
In Gilroy, Saint Louise Hospital plans to break ground this summer for an 80,000-square-foot facility that will include doctors offices and a surgical center. The facility, scheduled to open in early 2007, will be adjacent to the hospital, said Vivian Smith, vice president of public relations and physician services.
“It definitely will have an impact on Saint Louise Hospital,” Smith said. “These independent outpatient surgery centers and imaging centers are driving hospitals in California and across the nation into economic peril. We’re here to serve everybody, regardless of their ability to pay. Will the new surgery center?”
Andrew Barna, director of strategic development at O’Connor Hospital, to which the Daughters of Charity, which owns the former Morgan Hill hospital building, have given the task of restocking the facility with doctors and other medical services.
“I’m not anti-competitive but It could create a competitive environment where one probably would not survive,” Barna said. He said DePaul had attempted to work with Roussere on opening a surgical center.
DePaul also has seen the addition in the past year of doctors offices on the former hospital site. Barna said DePaul may add a laboratory facility where patients would give blood for testing elsewhere.
Another effort to add physicians to the community is under way in the Morgan Hill Ranch, a business park west of U.S.101. The project involves selling – not leasing – medical office space to doctors. Plans for an outpatient surgical center have been dropped.
MedBridge Development operates two similar centers in Santa Barbara and one in San Francisco. Details: http://www.medbridgedevelopment.com/
