MADERA, Calif. – Nearly a year after Madera Community Hospital was purchased—and more than two years after it originally shuttered—hospital leaders say it could be open as early as next month.
The hospital, the only general acute care facility in all of Madera County, has remained shuttered since its abrupt closure in late 2022. Leaders declared bankruptcy a few months later.
After a drawn out bankruptcy process, a federal judge last February paved the way for an outside company, American Advanced Management (AAM), to purchase the hospital and eventually reopen it. The company owns 13 other facilities in five states, including Coalinga Regional Medical Center in Fresno County.
Madera Community Hospital’s newly appointed CEO, Steve Stark—who has led three other hospitals owned by AAM—told KVPR the final hurdle before reopening is an inspection by the California Department of Public Health that’s scheduled for early February.
“They really make sure that we're ready to safely and responsibly take care of our community,” Stark said. “And if we satisfy all their requirements, which we feel like we will, then we could open roughly the 15th or 16th of February.”
That date, however, could still change. Reopening has already been delayed many times.
Why so many delays?
When AAM first bought the hospital, company representatives estimated they could reopen the facility as soon as last summer.
So why didn’t they? One reason, Stark said, is that the hospital building was in worse condition than the company had anticipated.
“What we found was that a lot of things didn't work…gaskets and oil and grease had aged and settled. And so we just ran into a lot of plant issues,” he said.
Hiring has also been a challenge for the hundreds of positions necessary to run a hospital. Plus, Hurricane Helene damaged a North Carolina factory and led to a nationwide shortage of IV fluid.
“I can't really point to anything that we could have done any differently, given the circumstances, to open any sooner,” Stark said.
Passersby may have noticed that the hospital has received a facelift with a new coat of paint. Stark said leaders have also filled around 500 positions, with plans to grow further after opening.
Services offered by this newest iteration of the hospital won’t be identical to what was offered before. Leaders plan to debut a cardiac catheterization lab, which will offer some procedures to diagnose and treat heart conditions, as well as other new specialties including interventional radiology and podiatric surgery.
One department the hospital will not include is labor and delivery–a service that is not offered anywhere else in Madera County—due, said Stark, to its high operating costs. Indeed, reporting by many media outlets, including CalMatters, found that similar financial situations led to the closure of 56 maternity wards across California since 2012 in what is increasingly being called a “maternity care crisis.”
In the long term, Stark said labor and delivery are not out of the question in Madera. However, due to low government payments to the hospital for the majority of its patients on Medi-Cal and Medicare, the return of maternity services would rely on the success of other, more profitable departments—like the cardiac catheterization lab.
“It creates a new financial revenue stream for the hospital,” Stark said. “We’re willing to bring back [obstetrics] and labor and delivery, but we can’t do it at a six-million-dollar-a-year loss.”
Madera County residents are ready
The hospital’s closure led to short-term emergency declarations in two counties. Some patients found themselves cut off from long-term treatments. And in addition to concerns from the public that patients experiencing emergencies could worsen or die on their way to out-of-county hospitals, many local healthcare leaders warned of setbacks to chronic disease management.
Linette Lomeli, Executive Director of the Madera Coalition for Community Justice, said she heard similar reports directly from residents.
“What I have heard, which is incredibly heartbreaking, is that there is a large number of community members who just skip out on medical services,” Lomeli said.
Lomeli said community members underwent a grieving period after the hospital closed.
“There was a period in time where we just didn't know what was going to happen,” she said.
Now, she said, Madera County residents are excited to have their hospital back—even without labor and delivery, which she said she hopes will eventually return.
Lomeli said she also hopes its new operators maintain a positive relationship with the community and keep resident’s needs in center focus.
“I’m very optimistic,” she said. “I anticipate that…that is something that we are going to see once the hospital is open.”