Fundraising to buy the bankrupt Watsonville Community Hospital is still millions of dollars short, and officials worry the purchase bid will fail, the facility will shut down, and residents of Santa Cruz and Monterey counties will suffer, The Santa Cruz Sentinel reports.
“I’m scared we won’t be able to close the sale,” said Mimi Hall, chair of the Pajaro Valley Healthcare District Project, a non-profit community group trying to buy the facility.
For the purchase to go ahead, project officials must come up with $63 million by a court-ordered deadline of Aug. 31, and as of this week were more than $15 million short, Hall said.
“It’s getting harder and harder to close that gap,” said Hall, former director of the Santa Cruz County Health Services Agency.
The bankrupt community hospital is one of two in Santa Cruz County. In the last 21 years, 20 different for-profit healthcare companies have taken ownership of the facility and subsequently sold the hospital. Read more.
