Small Tucson hospital closes; 99 staff laid off

A healthcare facility on the Tucson Medical Center campus was closed on Friday, laying off 99 employees.

Select Specialty Hospital – Tucson East updated its website to indicate that it had closed, with information for patients who wish to request their medical records.

Its parent company, Pennsylvania-based Select Medical Corporation, had said earlier in July that it would be permanently closed by September.

The company informed staff and filed a notice of the coming job cuts July 9 with state officials, as required by the federal Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act.

Democrats pointed out the shutdown comes about a year after the passage of President Donald Trump’s “One Big Beautiful Bill Act,” which cuts nearly $1 trillion in federal funding to Medicaid over the next decade.

The 28-bed facility, located at 5301 E. Grant Rd., has provided care for a a variety of medical needs, including brain injuries, cardiac conditions and infectious diseases.

Shelly Eckenroth, a spokeswoman for Select Medical, said the company also operates Select Specialty Hospital – Tucson Northwest in Casas Adobes and Banner Rehabilitation Hospital – Tucson, plus several other facilities in the Phoenix area.

She told the Tucson Sentinel earlier that the company was working to relocate Tucson East employees to the other locations to avoid job losses.

A request by a reporter to speak to Dawn Tschaburn, the Grant Road location’s CEO, at the site was denied as the Sentinel broke the news of the shutdown in a July 17 story. The company did not respond to questions about the specific reasons for the closure.

The hospital is located in Southern Arizona’s 6th Congressional District, currently represented by second-term U.S. Rep. Juan Ciscomani. The Republican is running for re-election in the November midterms, opposed by Democratic candidate JoAnna Mendoza.

Arizona Democrats earlier in July decried the effects of the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, passed July 4, 2025, saying its new income and work requirements threaten the healthcare coverage of 1.8 million Arizonans enrolled in the Arizona Health Care Cost Containment System, the state’s Medicaid program.

Ciscomani, in the days before the passage of the One Big Beautiful Bill, urged U.S. senators to oppose any legislation that would limit Medicaid access for “vulnerable adults.”

He voted on July 3, 2025, in favor of it, arguing that healthcare providers serving low-income patients would have access to a “new $50 billion hospital fund,” though federal financing for the program is set to end in four years.

A January analysis by the Arizona Mirror indicated the One Big Beautiful Bill Act would result in the loss of nearly $110 million for 10 hospitals in or near CD 6 each year over the course of a decade.

The Arizona Hospital and Healthcare Association also openly opposed the bill at the time, stating that the version passed through the House in May 2025 was “significantly stronger” in its commitment to Arizona’s Medicaid recipients, but the version passed through the Senate about two months later would cause widespread harm.

“Juan Ciscomani voted to gut Southern Arizonans’ health care, and now health care clinics across the state are closing,” Mendoza wrote in a statement. “We need a leader in Congress who’s actually going to stand up for us, fight for lower costs and protect our health care.”

Ciscomani’s spokesman, C.J. Karamargin, said there was no direct link between Ciscomani’s vote for the One Big Beautiful Bill and the closure of the hospital. Any news report suggesting a relationship between the two would be “flimsy,” he added, before requesting follow-up questions be sent to his email.

He also noted that Select Medical had a history of investigations against it. A New York law firm in June announced it was looking into the company’s board of directors and senior leadership for “potential breaches of their fiduciary duties” ahead of a pending sale of the company.

In 2021, the company paid $8.4 million to settle allegations that it had violated the False Claims Act at a dozen New York facilities.

“You’re going to believe a partisan organization?” he asked referring to a news release by the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee during the first of two phone conversations with a reporter about the closure.

Follow-up questions sent to him via email remained unanswered.