Pajaro Valley Health Trust releases sale of Watsonville hospital to Halsen Health Care Group

After announcing that it was going to exercise its right of first refusal by buying Watsonville Community Hospital, the Pajaro Valley Health Trust has decided to release the sale from Quorum Health to Halsen Health Care Group.

PVCHT said it decided the sale was not feasible because of the limited amount of time to secure financing and get ready for operations.

“The Health Trust engaged in a good faith effort to find a path forward to acquire and operate Watsonville Community Hospital on behalf of our residents, stakeholders and community. We have exhausted all avenues in arriving at this very difficult decision. Unfortunately, the financial challenges were too significant, and the time frame too short, for us to move forward,” said Shebreh Kalantari-Johnson, the chair of the Pajaro Valley Community Health Trust Board of Directors.

The health trust said it believes the for-profit corporation that owns the hospital now, Quorum Health, will go ahead with a previously negotiated sale to Halsen Health Care Group.

The hospital was initially nonprofit but was sold to the for-profit hospital operator Community Health Systems in 1998. As a result of the sale, the Pajaro Valley Community Health Trust was created and given the right of first refusal to buy the hospital before the seller negotiated other offers. Quorum took over the hospital in 2016, but because it was a spin-off of Community Health Systems, it did not go up for sale. This is the first time Watsonville Community Hospital has been for sale since 1998.