Santa Clara and San Mateo County leaders are hoping to keep the doors open at four Bay Area hospitals owned by financially embattled Verity Health System, which filed for bankruptcy in late August.

In Santa Clara County, the Board of Supervisors voted unanimously on Tuesday to authorize its staff to move forward with a process to purchase O’Connor Hospital in San Jose and Saint Louise Regional Hospital in Gilroy, both operated by Verity.

In neighboring San Mateo County, where Verity owns Seton Medical Center in Daly City and Seton Coastside in Moss Beach, a town hall is scheduled for Wednesday night in San Francisco to discuss ways to prevent the closure of those hospitals.

"These hospitals are huge assets to the community in general, but specifically, they provide health care to an enormous number of low-income people in the community," said state Sen. Scott Wiener, who will attend the meeting. "And if these hospitals either shut down or are significantly scaled back, many, many low-income families will suffer, many children will suffer, many seniors will suffer. And our community will be less healthy. We need to avoid that at all costs."

Verity CEO Rich Adcock wrote in a statement that the hospitals will remain open throughout the Chapter 11 process and that patient care remains a top priority. The statement said that an additional $185 million has been secured "to continue care for patients, pay employee wages and salaries and honor employee benefits and other workforce obligations." Verity owns six hospitals in California, including two in Los Angeles County.