City Beat
More Healthcare
Options Coming
to Morgan Hill
By Maureen Tobin,
Communications & Engagement Manager
Healthcare guest speakers at Choose Morgan Hill Speakers Series.
I
t’s been more than two decades
since Morgan Hill has had a full-
service hospital, forcing residents
to seek most healthcare services
from nearby cities. The City’s Economic
Blueprint has identified healthcare
as one of the four key industries for
Economic Development, to grow and
foster medical service and diagnostics
industry by attracting services and
facilities. As a result, the City updated
its zoning code to allow healthcare uses
in 90% of the City’s zoning districts.
Removing a barrier to entry is only the
first step. Convincing healthcare pro-
viders that there is a need and a market
in Morgan Hill is next.
Last Fall, the City’s Economic
Development Department hosted
the first annual Choose Morgan Hill
Speaker Series. The event on health-
care gave Morgan Hill residents many
reasons to be optimistic in 2020.
Santa Clara County Executive, Dr. Jeff
Smith, shared that expanded County
services are in the planning stages at
the 24-acre site of the De Paul Medical
Center. “Morgan Hill is a community
that’s expanding rapidly. We’re going
to expand the outpatient services-lab,
x-ray, surgery center. We’re coming up
96
with plans to carve out the old emer-
gency room and ORs to use as urgent
care and a surgery center. Probably
within two years we’ll be able to have it
reopened.” said Dr. Smith.
“What we are looking to do is
complement the Morgan Hill
facility in terms of growth of
outpatient services with the
inpatient facility at
St. Louise.”
The expansion at De Paul will pro-
ceed in tandem with service increases
at St. Louise to provide residents in
the South Valley with a wide array of
options, according to Santa Clara Valley
Medical Center Hospital and Clinics
CEO Paul Lorenz. “What we are looking
to do is complement the Morgan Hill
facility in terms of growth of outpatient
services with the inpatient facility at St.
Louise,” said Lorenz.
County reinvestment in the shut-
tered DePaul Center is good, but half
of Morgan Hill residents are Kaiser
Permanente customers. Dr. Efran Rosas,
GILROY • MORGAN HILL • SAN MARTIN
SPRING 2020
Kaiser Permanente San Jose Chief
Medical Officer discussed Kaiser’s inter-
est in locating a new Kaiser Permanente
facility in Morgan Hill. “Our idea is to
be closer to where our members live
because traffic can be tough in this little
corridor here.” said Rosas.
“People in Morgan Hill have gotten
very used to the idea that they have to
travel for their healthcare. They have to
go up to San Jose, maybe they go down
to St. Louise,” said Cecily Murray, a
management consultant for the Camino
Ear, Nose and Throat Clinics and
Lillian Commons. “It’s time for Morgan
Hill to have excellent, state-of-the-art
healthcare.” Camino has an office off
Tennant Avenue and Lillian Commons,
LLC is proposing a new 55-bed facil-
ity in the City,. Plans were presented at
the Planning Commission on January
28 for preliminary review. She noted
there was interest from two healthcare
providers and that the proposal would
require converting some of the freeway-
fronting commercial land to residential
to support the cost of the healthcare
facilities. This project will be officially
reviewed and vetted by the Planning
Commission and City Council through
a General Plan Amendment request.
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