Despite the recent construction of three state-of-the-art trauma bays, the Hazel Hawkins Memorial Hospital emergency room is not designated as a trauma center due to a lack of staff and funding.
Without the designation, the hospital does not receive patients who are in need of trauma care, unless they are in need of stabilization, said Rebecca Jones, the director of emergency services at the hospital.
The hospital is capable of treating trauma patients initially, but eventually the hospital has to get “them where they need to be,” Jones said. Under the MAP trauma triage, a person is considered a trauma patient if the person is suffering from two of three injuries: a high impact wound, such as a fall of more than 15 feet; an anatomic injury, such as a burn; or a physiological injury.
The trauma bays and emergency room were built from funds from Measure L, approved by voters in May 2005. The measure is intended to raise $32 million over a 20-year period to upgrade the hospital. The trauma bays were included in a new E.R. for the hospital, which includes a state-of-the-art C.T. Scanner, a decontamination room, and seven private treatment rooms.
The trauma bays and emergency room were built from funds from Measure L, approved by voters in May 2005.
The E.R. was completed in December after nearly two years of construction. With staffing issues due to cost, the bigger E.R. has not been used to its capacity, using only a portion of its rooms, according to a report from the San Benito County Civil Grand Jury.
The level of use and specialized staffing are primary factors in the designations that allow hospitals to treat trauma patients. Without it here, it means victims still are often airlifted to trauma centers such as in San Jose. That was the case recently on June 16, when a male juvenile’s leg was impaled by his bicycle’s handle bar at Hollister’s skate park.
At this point, Jones admitted that the hospital E.R. staff is running at a “bare-bones” level. The civil grand jury in this year’s annual report made a point of noting the hospital’s under-use of the new facility.
“At the present time, the ER has staff to service only 12 of the 18 available rooms,” according to the report.
In the future, though, the hospital hopes to apply for a Level IV Trauma Center designation, spokeswoman Frankie Gallagher said.
“We built the E.R. out for the future,” she said. “We want to become a trauma center eventually.”
It won’t be for at least five years, Jones said.
“It’s possible but not for at least five years, once the volume increases and we get adequate staffing levels,” she said.
Hazel Hawkins Memorial Hospital currently meets the criteria for a Level IV Trauma Center expect for a required trauma nurse coordinator and a trauma program medical director, Jones said. To become a full trauma center – a Level I designation – the hospital would need to hire such specialized doctors as a vascular surgeon, neurosurgeon and pediatric specialists.
“The community just isn’t big enough to attract those types of surgeons,” Jones said.
Eventually as the population and volume of cases at the hospital grow, it might be able to attract those doctors, Gallagher said.
“This is for the future of this hospital as well,” she said, referring to the eventual build-out.
For now, the hospital does receive some trauma patients, but mostly from resident drop-offs or from incidents at Hollister Hills, Jones said. People with broken bones or in need of surgery traveling in a Calstar helicopter or ambulance are sent out of town to neighboring trauma centers.
If patients traveling in emergency vehicles stop at Hazel Hawkins, it’s because they need immediate help, Jones said. When they do arrive, the hospital is capable of caring for the patients, as most of the nurses are “trauma nurse”-certified and the hospital has the equipment.
“We can function as a trauma center because we do receive trauma patients,” she said. “We stabilize them, or get them ready to get where they need to be.”
The hospital is always ready to receive any type of patients, she said.
“We never turn people away,” she said. “We are always ready to help out somehow.”
