CHRISTUS Santa Rosa Health System announced plans to soon close its hospital located in the South Texas Medical Center. That’s a loss of 174 inpatient beds, but only until a new tower at CHRISTUS Santa Rosa Hospital — Westover Hills opens this spring.
In a press release on Monday, the Catholic nonprofit health system said the decision follows an internal performance evaluation of hospital operations to address the evolving health care needs of the community.
On April 25, CHRISTUS Santa Rosa Hospital, which has operated for more than 38 years, will close its doors. Employees will be placed at other CHRISTUS facilities.
On average, hospital beds at the medical center location were one-third full. Patients sent from its Westover Hills hospital accounted for about half of those patients, CHRISTUS told the San Antonio Report.
CHRISTUS officials said the new tower at the Westover Hills hospital will replace all inpatient beds from the medical center hospital.
“This decision was made with the well-being of our patients in mind,” said Grant Wicklund, CEO of CHRISTUS Santa Rosa Health System. “Our patients and associates will always be our priority, and we are committed to ensuring a smooth transition of care to other CHRISTUS facilities.”
CHRISTUS Health has more than 60 hospitals in the U.S. and South America.
In San Antonio, CHRISTUS has hospitals in Westover Hills, Alamo Heights and a children’s hospital downtown, as well as several medical clinics.
In November 2023, the system announced it would expand its Westover Hills hospital by adding the new, 164,000 square-foot, four-story tower with 30 new private postpartum rooms, a newborn nursery, a new obstetrics emergency room unit equipped with private rooms, 44 new adult intensive care beds, 20 neonatal intensive care beds and an expanded pharmacy.
San Antonio has lost hospital beds in recent years due to closures, most notably Texas Vista Hospital on the city’s Southwest Side in 2023 and the historic Nix Hospital on the River Walk in 2019.
Others, including Bexar County’s public health system have expanded: University Health’s Women’s and Children’s Hospital opened in August in the medical center and construction is underway on two new hospitals. Also in the medical center, UT Health San Antonio Multispecialty and Research Hospital opened in December.
Baptist Health System opened a hospital in Westover Hills last summer at Wiseman Boulevard and Loop 1604.
According to the San Antonio Express-News, Methodist Healthcare is planning to build a hospital on the South Side.
Currently, there is only one full-service hospital serving the southern part of Bexar County and that is Baptist Health System’s Mission Trail Baptist Hospital at Brooks.
