To save a hospital, a health care district serving North County forms in record time.

For over 6,500 Monterey County residents who live in Pajaro Valley, the closest hospital is Watsonville Community Hospital over the Santa Cruz County line. From Las Lomas, it’s less than 15 minutes. To head south to Natividad or Salinas Valley Memorial Hospital, it’s closer to 25 minutes. Since every minute counts in an emergency, those residents’ care is threatened by the possible closure of the hospital, whose owner Halsen Healthcare filed for bankruptcy on Dec. 6, 2021.

To save the hospital, Sen. John Laird, D-Santa Cruz, rushed Senate Bill 418 through the California Legislature in 19 days, creating the Pajaro Valley Health Care District, which includes Watsonville, Pajaro and Las Lomas. It passed on Feb. 3 and was signed less than 24 hours later by Gov. Gavin Newsom. Laird says they had to race to meet a Feb. 22 deadline to present a purchase bid in court.

The hopeful purchasers are a nonprofit group made up of representatives from Santa Cruz County, the city of Watsonville, the Community Health Trust of Pajaro Valley and the Salud Para La Gente medical clinic. They formed last summer to purchase the hospital from Halsen, which had been hemorrhaging cash since becoming the owner in 2019. The group is now attempting to raise $50 million to present to the court. If another bidder presents themselves after Feb. 14 it could go to auction, but officials think that’s unlikely. They’ve raised approximately $18 million, says Laird, who is working to help them secure a loan from the state, which would later forgive the loan with money from the 2022-23 budget.

The goal is to recreate what the Watsonville hospital once was two decades ago, a nonprofit community hospital that serves residents and not the bottom line of private company shareholders, says the project’s board chair, Mimi Hall. That’s particularly important in a region like Pajaro Valley where a large number of residents tend to be lower-income, under-insured or uninsured or rely on Medi-Cal, precisely the population public hospital districts are designed to serve.

Health care districts are governed by a board of trustees elected by voters, although due to the urgency the first board will be selected by Santa Cruz County Board of Supervisors, which represents the district’s 53,800 Watsonville residents.

“It really was about making sure those who made decisions for the hospital and the services it provided were stewards of the community,” Hall says.

Normally, new special districts must go through a process to designate boundaries through the Local Agency Formation Commission, but there wasn’t time, Laird says. Any possible conflicts with Salinas Valley Memorial Healthcare District will be remedied later. “It was jumping through lots and lots of hoops,” Laird says.

On Tuesday, Feb. 8, the Monterey County Board of Supervisors voted 3-2 to provide $3 million toward the purchase. The Central California Alliance for Health recently pledged $3 million and the Santa Cruz supervisors pledged $5 million.