Quick Take
Watsonville Community Hospital’s maternity services and neonatal intensive care unit could close in 120 days. Kaiser Permanente has the resources – and a responsibility to its local hospital partner – to help prevent that outcome, the Lookout Editorial Board writes. A $15 million commitment over three years could keep essential care in the Pajaro Valley and help rally other funders. The clock is ticking. Kaiser, the board writes, should step up now.
Editor’s note: A Lookout View is the opinion of our Community Voices opinion section, written by Community Voices Editor Jody K. Biehl and Lookout founder Ken Doctor. Our goal is to connect the dots we see in the news and offer a bigger-picture view — all intended to see Santa Cruz County meet the challenges of the day and to shine a light on issues we believe must be on the public agenda. These views are distinct and independent from the work of our newsroom and its reporting.
The next 120 days could determine whether Watsonville Community Hospital keeps its maternity services and neonatal intensive care unit. Kaiser Permanente has an opportunity to help make that happen.
We believe Kaiser should step up.
Watsonville Community Hospital has formally asked Kaiser to contribute $5 million a year for three years to help sustain maternity services. We hope Kaiser quickly agrees. We even think it should offer more.
The decision by the Pajaro Valley Health Care District board to begin closing the services is a devastating setback for the Pajaro Valley. It is also a failure of our regional healthcare system and, ultimately, of state policy.
We understand the bind the board was in. Watsonville Community Hospital is in precarious financial condition, with only seven days of cash on hand. Its maternity services are losing about $10 million a year. The board faced an impossible choice: continue operating a service it cannot afford and risk the future of the entire hospital, or close a unit that serves a critical community need.
WATSONVILLE COMMUNITY HOSPITAL: Read more Lookout news and Community Voices opinion coverage here
This was not a vote by people who wanted to eliminate maternity care. It was a vote by people who could not see a financially responsible alternative. Three of the five board members cried after the vote.
But understanding the decision does not mean giving up on care.
The board has voted to begin the closure process. It has not yet happened. There are 120 days to change the outcome — a window that should become an urgent, organized effort to find a way to keep maternity care in Watsonville.
The stakes are enormous. In 2025, the hospital delivered 816 babies, about 100 of whom needed neonatal intensive care. Those babies will still be born if maternity services disappear. Their mothers will have to travel elsewhere, sometimes an hour or more in traffic. For a woman experiencing a labor emergency, that distance can be dangerous. We hate to imagine what it means for a baby in distress.
The rest of us will also feel this burden, as emergency services and the emergency room at Santa Cruz’s Dominican Hospital get stretched even thinner.
As three local healthcare leaders argued in a recent Lookout Community Voices opinion piece, maternity care in the Pajaro Valley is a regional responsibility. The costs and pressures do not disappear when a hospital closes a service; they are transferred to other hospitals and emergency transportation systems. A recent op-ed by Dr. Madhu Raghavan makes a similar case for finding a way to preserve this essential care.
The workforce also matters. We understand from hospital physicians that approximately 56 nurses, along with respiratory therapists and other employees, could lose their positions if the maternity unit closes. These are trained professionals with experience serving this community. Would they be absorbed locally? If the hospital figures out its financing later on, would they even come back?
Healthcare is a mess in this country as a whole, and the hospital’s problems reflect that wider failure. As in so many other areas, we have seen significant consolidation amid mounting cost pressures. The roles of three major players — Sutter Health, Kaiser Permanente and Dominican Hospital — are part of a larger regional challenge. But the immediate priority is finding enough money to prevent the planned closure.
Kaiser depends on Watsonville Community Hospital for its role in our community – it should be the first major partner to offer help. It has the resources to make it happen fast. The state and other legislative options would take too long.
The relationship between Kaiser and Watsonville Community Hospital is multifaceted.
Watsonville Community Hospital has been a valuable resource and partner for Kaiser. It allowed Kaiser to fulfill its long-held goal of serving our area by becoming its affiliated hospital for Santa Cruz County in 2017. In 2022, Kaiser contributed $7.5 million toward the hospital’s acquisition as a locally controlled healthcare district. When Kaiser expanded into Monterey County in 2025, it relied on Watsonville as its hospital partner there, too. Watsonville is integral to Kaiser’s success in selling its insurance in our community. It gives Kaiser a local hospital where its members can receive inpatient care. Kaiser depends on Watsonville for its model to work and should have an interest in keeping its partner thriving, not just operating as a threadbare outpost.
Kaiser says it cares about the wider communities it serves and has demonstrated that in making substantial investments in community hospitals. In August, it committed $25 million to Martin Luther King Jr. Community Hospital in South Los Angeles to help expand and improve emergency services. It also offered the hospital a $7 million modular facility loan. Just last week, Kaiser made a $15 million charitable grant to UCSF Benioff Children’s Hospital Oakland.
Watsonville Community Hospital is asking for $15 million over three years, hoping that with that funding, it could make up the other $5 million a year needed for maternity services via grants, community support, increases in local Medi-Cal reimbursement and increased state funding.
We are not suggesting the circumstances are the same, but we have seen Kaiser demonstrate capacity to respond when it recognizes a vital community need. We hope it feels enough urgency now to respond.
We believe other institutions need to step up as well, among them Sutter Health, which explored a possible partnership with Watsonville about six months ago. But Kaiser is the main player right now.
Importantly, a timely and substantial commitment from Kaiser could help unlock additional support, including from local businesses and philanthropists. People and businesses are more likely to invest if they see a credible plan and know their money will make a lasting difference. Too often that has not been the case with Watsonville Community Hospital, despite valiant efforts by the board and the state, including state Sen. John Laird and Assembly Speaker Robert Rivas.
The Community Foundation Santa Cruz County, which has done so much community-building, could be a key player in an effort to bring local philanthropists and businesses together. It should at least be consulted and asked for its input.
The clock is ticking at WCH once again. The alarm must be answered.
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