We, the undersigned, request Honorable  Gavin Newsom (Governor of California), Rob Bonta (CA State Attorney General),  to  stop the closure of the trauma, comprehensive stroke, and STEMI programs at Regional  Medical Center (RMC)  San Jose immediately . We also urge the provision of a safe environment for patients, nurses, staff, and physicians at Regional Medical Center, free from harassment and retaliation.

RMC is owned by HCA (Health Corporation of America) which is for profit operator of 185 hospitals in 20 states in USA. . Net Income for  2023 was  $5.2 BILLION

RMC is the only hospital on East side of San Jose , highly dense population providing medical coverage to  approximately 1/3 population of Santa Clara County (approx. 600000 lives). Remaining 8 hospitals are located on west side in county provide coverage to remaining 2/3 of the population (approx. 1.2 Million). RMC has bed capacity of 258 only while remaining 8 hospitals on west side has inpatient bed capacity of approximately 3000 beds 

East San Jose has underserved, very diverse population comprising of Hispanic (about 50%) and Asians (about 41% ) consisting of Chinese, Vietnamese, Indian, Filipino  and many others . White population is only 4.6 %

Closure of these specialty programs will mean that on August 12 th 2024 that there will no longer be any in-house Trauma surgeon, Neurosurgeon, O.R. Tech, Angio Suite tech, plastic surgeon, ENT surgeon , Cardiothoracic surgeon, Neuro IR physician, STEMI Cardiologist . 

RMC serves about 2450 Trauma, 1871 Stroke and 2600 Heart attack patients per year. There is no surrounding hospital to help as it stands alone on the East side of the county. It has both walk ins (majority) and EMS arrivals. EMS would take patients to the nearest specialty programs but walk ins need to stabilized and transferred to the nearest hospital which will require a lot of time (calling accepting hospital, availability of bed in accepting hospital, critical care EMS to transport and condition of the patient) and can take hours at time. 

These Specialty programs are time sensitive medical emergencies. Golden first hour in management of Trauma, Heart attack and Stroke may be lost or cut short for both walk ins and EMS transported patients increasing death  and disability  for  patients living around RMC. We are talking about dozens of patients daily. Studies have shown that closure of a major trauma center increases death of critical patients by 29% in the first two years after closure. An untreated patient can lose 1.9 million neurons every minute during a stroke. The same is true about heart attack where death and disability can increase exponentially high if intervention is not done in timely fashion. Transfers will affect all 8 hospitals in County especially Valley medical center, Occonor Hospital, Good Samaritan Hospital as well Stanford Medical Center. 

There will no longer be a hospital for access for Disaster Management in East San Jose . Larger scale incidents such as a significant earthquake, a vehicle accident involving public transportation, active shooter incidents in densely populated east side San Jose will not have access to trauma services.

If public loses confidence in RMC’s ability to provide standard and safe medical care, they may preferentially go to neighboring hospitals for hospital level care and it will cause extra strain in other 8 hospitals in Santa Clara County and Washington Hospital  in Fremont . 

Following are the physicians and Organization who are supporting this petition:

Physicians from MEDICAL EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE and leadership RMC: 

Dr. Amir Matityahu, (President)  Dr. Priya Kumaravelu ( Vice President,),  Dr. Brian Toyota (Chairman of Surgery)  Dr. Raj Gupta ( Medical Director Stroke and Neurosciences), Dr. Shahid Siddique (Section chair Cardiology), Dr. Nicole Atherton) ( Chief of Trauma Services), Dr. Keith Kwok ( (Chairman of Radiology), Dr. Thomas Lei (Member at large Medicine)Dr. Janice Yeung (ICU Director , Trauma services); Dr Carl Law (Chairman Anesthesia)

Community Physicians from East San Jose : 

Past Presidents Medical staff RMC : Dr. Emiro Burbano, Dr. Amara Balakrishnan, Dr. Jose Guanzon, Dr Hossein Habibi, Dr Peter C Fung

 Dr. Emeka Nchekwube (Recipient of The Frist Humanitarian Award from HCA)

Dr Randal Pham, Dr Patricia Salmon, Dr. Jaco Fishenfeld,  Dr. Tin Hla, Dr. Rasik Kansara, Dr. Pacific Santos, , Dr. Nicole Thai, Dr. Shaswati Kale, Dr. Rosaline Vasquez, Dr. Jayashree Joshi, Dr. Rashid Elahi, Dr. Praveen Rafia, Dr. Grace Tee, Dr. Dorothy Wong, Dr. Adil Irani, Dr. Padma Yaragalda, Dr. David Yeh, Dr. Tanvi Raman, Dr. Morgan Wong, Dr. Soren A Singel, Dr. Kyaw Minh, Dr. Khurram Abbass, Dr. Maggie Chau, Dr. Philip Tse, Dr. Abishek Chowdhary, Dr. Padmaja  Vemula, Dr. Pydi Akella, Dr. Thuy Tuong Nguyen, Dr. Kajal Patel, Dr. Akshay Shah, Dr. Xihua Sun, Dr. Daniel Tse, Dr. Teresita Guanzon, Dr Raul Guisado, Dr John Lien , Dr Munawar Alavi, Dr Adrian Ma, Dr Tirupathy Reddy, Dr Suresh Nayak, Dr Varun Kapur MPH, Dr Sanjay Aggarwal, Dr Huy Trinh ,

Community Leaders and Prominent Citizens :

Cindy Chavez (Santa Clara County Supervisor ), Anil Yadav, Domingo Candelas (San Jose City Councilmember), Marie Blankley, Mayor, City of Gilroy; Arjun Batra (san Jose City Council District ten Member), Tara Srikrishann, Patrick Ahrens

Community Organizations : 

1.American Association of Physicians of INDIAN Origin (AAPIO) https://aapio.org/

2.CRACK the Wellness Code (CWC) https://mycwc.org/

3.Valley Physicians Group https://www.vpgsantaclaracounty.org/

4.the Latina Coalition of Silicon Valley https://www.latinacoalition.org/

5.SEIU-UHW  https://www.seiu-uhw.org/

6.SIKH GURDWARA-SAN JOSE https://sanjosegurdwara.org/

7.Latinas Contra Cancer Defensoras Patient Organizing Commitee https://www.latinascontracancer.org/

8.Community Health Partnership https://chpscc.org/

9.Vietnamese Physician Association of Northern California http://www.vpanc.com/

10. Santa Clara County Medical Association https://www.sccma.org/

11.City Of Morgan Hill https://www.morganhill.ca.gov/

12. Pacific Stroke Association https://pacificstrokeassociation.org/

13.Northern California Taiwanese Medical Association (NCTMA)

            If you or your family or friend live or work in the Santa Clara County or Fremont or Hospital catchment area of Washington Hospital, we humbly request you to sign this petition. Please forward this petition to all your friends and family sending clear cut loud BIG NO to PROFIT OVER PEOPLE by HCA and affirming our faith in HEALTH FOR ALL.

We are attaching link to flyers which can be emailed or accessed via smart phone

A. Detailed version  https://asesjhs.squarespace.com/s/flyer-detailed       B. QR code only https://asesjhs.squarespace.com/s/flyer-QR-Code .We will urge everyone to consider putting this flyer in  their work places, stores, restaurants  temples, churches, bulletin boards, schools and possibilities are endless. All local organizations involved in promoting health care can do at their local level . TOGETHER WE WIN. 

   If you need more in-depth knowledge of the issue, you can go through Video  made by Dr Raj Gupta for Public Education about impact of closure of these medical services at Public Education Lecture : Impact of Closure of Trauma, Comprehensive Stroke and STEMI programs At Regional Medical Center San Jose

We invite you to join Association  to SAVE EAST SAN JOSE HEALTH SYSTEM through our website at https://asesjhs.squarespace.com/ We would love to have more community and professional organizations joining us. 

For Updates to initial petition, please read the updates 

We thank you for bottom of our hearts for signing this petition and trying to save lifeline of underserved community at East San Jose.  Please accept our deepest gratitude from all members of THE ASSOCIATION to Save THE East San Jose Health System .