SAN JOSE — Santa Clara County’s $300 million expansion and seismic upgrade at Valley Medical Center is already two years behind schedule — with no hope of opening next month in time for its latest deadline.

Now, in an increasingly bitter dispute that played out Monday at the construction site, the county declared it intends to fire Turner Construction, the company overseeing the project and one of the country’s biggest builders, whom county officials blame for falling woefully behind on the job.

The two sides sparred in what turned into dueling news conferences, with the county claiming Turner’s inability to finish the 168-room hospital building is costing Valley Med $100,000 a day in lost revenue. The delays have stalled Santa Clara County’s public hospital from upgrading the way it cares for maternity and rehabilitation patients and burn victims.

In a walk-through with reporters, county officials pointed out gaping ceilings, unusable toilets and unfinished outside decks. But a spokesman for Turner showed up to defend the company, calling the notion that the company is to blame for the delays “poppycock.”

Turner spokesman Larry Kamer said the new hospital tower, funded by a 2008 taxpayer initiative, is “90 percent” complete, and blamed the delays on the county changing its mind about the project too many times.

The two sides were in heated talks with their lawyers Monday afternoon, following a final notice from the county sent Friday that Turner was in breach of its contract. Officials claim the county has been losing $36 million a year — an estimate based on calculations of the number of patients who cannot be accommodated in rehabilitation, burn and intensive care units while the long-planned upgrade languishes.

“If you walk into this facility you can see what state it’s in and it’s nowhere near the Sept. 19 completion date,” said hospital CEO Paul Lorenz. “We have a contract and we expect them to deliver on their contract.”

Boasting repeatedly that Turner is “the leading construction company of hospitals in the country,” spokesman Kamer said “the county has issued hundreds of contradictory ‘change orders,’ ” and that indecisiveness, not any action on the part of the firm, “is the real reason for the delays.”

Kamer shouted, “Absolute nonsense!” when asked about the county’s assertion that Turner had essentially ditched much of the work on the hospital when it got a more lucrative opportunity to work on the $1.3 billion Levi’s Stadium project in nearby Santa Clara. County officials claim 400 workers are needed on the Valley Med site, but typically there are only about 130 to be found.

Kamer said Monday that if the county fires Turner, hundreds of union workers will be out of a job. And he called Monday’s news conference, which the county arranged following an NBC 11 news report last week on the delayed project, “a PR stunt.”

Turner claims it could complete the hospital tower by the end of 2016, although the current contract calls for it to be completed Sept. 19, a deadline nobody believes will be met.

The county broke ground on the project in September 2009 with funding from Measure A, a bond approved by voters to help the hospital upgrade its buildings to meet state mandated seismic safety requirements. Once the project is completed, many patients who now share rooms in 1960s-era buildings with as many as four beds per room will enjoy private rooms. That includes mothers on the maternity wards who are now double bunking after giving birth. The public hospital is also waiting for the project’s completion to expand its burn unit and attract new patients with other, more modern amenities needed to meet market demands.

Despite the delays with the hospital project — which is described in yellowing posters proclaiming taxpayer dollars at work — the county is not in jeopardy of failing to meet 2030 state seismic upgrade requirements.

But there have been signs the project was veering off course. In February, a mutually agreed upon external review found the project had “veered from its original contract process” relating to “quality control.” The independent auditor found that “with adequate quality control responsibility by the contractor” construction time frames could be met.

In a letter dated Aug. 28, the county sent Turner representatives its final notice of contract default, which gives the company a week to respond. In the letter, county officials stated: “For the past two years, the County has written letters, had meetings, made compromises, but nothing has worked.” The hospital project is understaffed, they noted, “idle in most locations,” and “continues to languish.”

If Turner and the county fail to reach an agreement within a week, County Executive Jeff Smith said, a new contractor will be hired to finish the job. “It would be nice if they would come up with a plan that would actually work,” Smith said. But, he added, “we anticipate removing them from the project.”

Contact Karen de Sá at 408-920-5781.