Community

As winter sets in and temperatures drop, Santa Clara County officials are actively working with all jurisdictions and providers to ramp up warming centers and associated services for homeless individuals and families, according to county staff.

The local school district has proposed increasing its sports field use fees paid by youth teams, in some cases by thousands of percentage points—a cost hike that would fall on the backs of participating families, according to the presidents of two long-established, local leagues.

The holiday spirit is alive and well at Sailor’s Ink tattoo shop, where owner Jen Kelso is offering discounts on ink for customers who donate a present for the shop's Christmas toy drive.

South Valley Fleurs Garden Club is accepting grant applications from local schools and youth groups through its EduGrow Planting-to-Learn program, which aims to promote horticulture education.

Saint Louise Regional Hospital’s new chief medical officer wants to see the Gilroy-based 93-bed medical center grow, incorporate cutting edge technologies and focus on the newest cancer treatments.Dr. Arthur Douville takes over the helm of the South Valley hospital, as well as San Jose’s O’Connor Hospital on Jan. 2. The sister hospitals are owned by Redwood City’s Verity Health Systems, which was formerly Daughters of Charity Health System, and owns four hospitals in Northern California and two in Southern California.“It’s not a backwater,” Douville said in response to a reporter asking why he left bigger facilities in the county. “The facility is a crucial element of medical care in the community for starters. Look at its location, between Hazel Hawkins and Kaiser. It’s the only significant medical facility in the area with a growing community, new people coming in, new businesses. I think it’s a crucial part of the community. You’re going to be surprised at what’s going to happen at Saint Louise.”Among his wish list is improving the emergency room, which now has eight beds that serve 30,000 patients a year. The hospital already has a cutting edge telemedicine system and was the first in the area with a robot that worked for emergency stroke victims, linking them to specialists in Los Angeles. Douville studied Saint Louise’s stroke program when he was at Good Samaritan Hospital and used it as a model.“There’s nothing wrong with it now, but I want to keep following up as a leader in telemedicine,” he said. “When I looked at the stroke program, I was amazed at the efficiency. Saint Louise can be a leader in some ways for the kind of facility it is, a smaller center for medical care in the community.”Verity’s management wants to make high quality cancer treatment a focus for its hospitals, he said. “We want to leverage the expertise of an urban medical center.”Douville said he’s concerned about possible federal cuts to medicare and Medi-Cal.“We should all be concerned about the effect on hospitals being able to provide safe and practical care,” he said. “But I think technology and better communications among caregivers will allow us to overcome any of these challenges.”He scoffed at an assertion by Rep. Diane Black (R-Tenn.) that emergency rooms should be allowed to turn away patients and refer them to walk-in clinics or their own physicians at a later date. A federal law passed under President Ronald Reagan required emergency rooms that receive Medicare funds to treat all patients. Before that, some hospitals turned away patients who couldn’t afford treatment.“That simply contravenes medical ethics and everything that is required for hospitals these days, as well as normal human compassion,” he said. “That’s Tennessee, not our community.”Douville was raised in Kansas, outside Kansas City, Missouri and got his MD from the University of Kansas, before moving west to study neurology at Stanford. He’s been in medicine for 30 years, including stints at Good Samaritan and Mission Oaks hospitals.SLRH opened in 1989 as Saint Louise Hospital in Morgan Hill. The hospital moved to Gilroy in 1999.Dr. Douville’s wife, Sherri, works for a startup called Medigram, which is a mobile communications software at data aggregation service that works with healthcare teams. The couple lives in Los Gatos.

Thousands of residents and visitors lined Monterey Road through downtown Morgan Hill Dec. 2 to watch the annual Holiday Parade. 

More than 400 revelers enjoyed cultural dances, stage performances and authentic cuisine at the Indian Association of South County’s celebration of Diwali Nov. 18.The association’s 23rd annual celebration of the Indian holiday took place at Oakwood School in south Morgan Hill. IASC President Poonam Chabra said the 450 people in attendance was a “record-breaking” crowd.Among the attendees were special guests Ranu Sinha, an award winning filmmaker, writer and director, and Morgan Hill City Councilman Rene Spring.In her comments to the audience, Sinha addressed the youth.“Let no one else stop you, but be yourself,” Sinha said. “Do other things in life that make you happy. It’s not just about becoming doctors or engineers, but support your community and those who are less fortunate.”Spring noted that the City of Morgan Hill has actively strived to embrace and celebrate its cultural diversity in recent years, and the Nov. 18 Diwali celebration is an example.Chabra listed the increasing involvement of IASC within the broader South County community in recent years, with an annual Indian Independence Day flag ceremony and other events. But she said they can do more, and implored IASC members to help the association implement more programs such as a senior resources fair, a youth skills development program and a community focused social media site.Diwali is celebrated in October in India and among Indian-Americans. The IASC held its annual celebration about a month later due to the timing of acquiring a large enough venue.The holiday is India’s biggest and most important holiday of the year. The festival acquired its name from rows of clay lamps that Indians light outside their homes to symbolize the inner light that protects them from spiritual darkness.The IASC represents more than 400 families in Morgan Hill, Gilroy, San Martin, Hollister and south San Jose. Their website is iascinfo.com.

The holiday season may have officially begun, but the local kickoff for winter spirits happens Dec. 2 at the 32nd annual Holiday Lights Parade, organized by the Morgan Hill Kiwanis Club.

Tickets are available for Community Solutions’ annual play—Historia de Mi Madre XI: Un Mundo Raro (A Strange World)—which will take place at 6:30 p.m. Dec. 2 inside the Gavilan College Theater (5055 Santa Teresa Blvd.) in Gilroy.

While most of their Live Oak High School classmates were at home enjoying the extended Thanksgiving break with family and friends, eight Future Business Leaders of America students were back on campus the morning of Nov. 20.