For more than 100 years, Trumbull Regional Medical Center – and its earlier identities as Trumbull Memorial Hospital and Warren City Hospital – has been providing quality medical services to tens of thousands of residents of Warren, Trumbull County and the entire Mahoning Valley.

It has become an integral part of the matrix of comprehensive health services in the Valley. But the bankruptcy filing by its for-profit Texas-based owner Steward Health Care earlier this year has jeopardized the future health and very survival of the medical center.

Our region could ill afford its permanent closing and the devastating impact that would have on the quantity and quality of sophisticated and convenient state-of-the-art health care. It also would sock a crushing blow to the overall economic vitality of Warren and Trumbull County.

That’s why it is encouraging to witness a group of private investors stepping forward aggressively and proactively in a mission to resuscitate the institution. It deserves the full-throttled support of Steward Health Care, local governments, Valley foundations and the public at large.

The group of health-care professionals and community and business leaders emerged Aug. 6, announcing its campaign to buy Trumbull Regional, to preserve the jobs of 700 workers there and to keep its needed health-care services there firmly intact.

The group plans to submit a formal offer to purchase the Warren hospital’s assets from Steward Health Care and rename it Warren City Hospital.

“Our primary objective is to save the hospital and all it means for health care in the community,” said John A. Guarnieri of Howland, a retired businessman and president of Warren City Hospital.

“We are concerned that if we do not buy the hospital, it may close for good. That would leave the community’s health care needs grossly underserved,” he said.

Guarnieri is not mincing words. The threat of closure is real. Steward has shown no hesitation in closing what it has deemed underused and overly costly facilities to operate. Shortly after its purchase of several hospitals in the Mahoning and Shenango valleys in 2017, it promptly closed the sprawling Northside Medical Center on the Youngstown-Liberty border in 2018. That move put 400 employees out of work and put added strains on other Valley hospitals including Trumbull Regional, strains that remain being felt today.

And just last month, Steward closed two of its hospitals in Massachusetts after it received no qualified bids to sell and keep them open. With no qualified bids received in the first round of biddings for TRMC, it, too, could suffer the same fate.

That’s why it is critical for the Mahoning Valley to rally behind the campaign of the Warren City Hospital group. Behind the scenes, the group already has developed an impressive plan to revitalize the hospital

That plan includes detailed strategies to hire a management company with expertise in reviving struggling community hospitals, ongoing negotiations with insurers and medical suppliers and formal incorporation and filing for nonprofit status with the Internal Revenue Service. It also has begun fundraising, already accumulating a healthy segment of a

$15 million goal.

To close the funding gap, we join leaders of Warren City Hospital group in appealing for financial donations from community philanthropists, foundations, corporations and anyone interested in seeing Trumbull County’s largest health-care facility survive this storm.

Those interested in investing with the Warren City Hospital group can reach out via the group’s website, warrencityhospital.org, by phone at 330-646-9593 or by email at warrencityhospital@gmail.com.

Clearly, there’s no time to waste to build additional momentum for the campaign. News this week that Steward has delayed indefinitely sales hearings for its facilities in Ohio, Pennsylvania and Florida, buys time for the local campaign to edge closer to its finish line.

Nonetheless, timing is everything. Should the worst case scenario occur in Steward’s shuttering of TRMC, the task of reopening it and restaffing it would become all the more arduous.

That’s why we double down on our appeal to assist Warren City Hospital’s mission to ensure the hospital remains a vital and robust health-care institution in our community for years and decades to come.