Following a $75 million donation from Irwin and Joan Jacobs UCSD Health System, which oversees all UCSD hospitals, has announced plans to build the Jacobs Medical Center, which will take over some responsibilities from the UCSD Medical Center in Hillcrest.
Critics from Scripps Medical Center in La Jolla argue that the new facility will have adverse effects on the Hillcrest location, which currently offers services such as advanced surgery and women’s care to many underprivileged San Diego residents. These services would move to the new center.
“Moving health-care services from an underserved community will create a ripple effect with all providers in the region,” Scripps Health President and CEO Chris Van Gorder said. “If UCSD provides fewer services in Hillcrest, the other providers — such as Scripps — will be responsible for a larger share of the underserved communities.”
According to UCSD Health System spokeswoman Kimberly Edwards, however, these are not valid concerns. She maintains that the “two-campus strategy” will actually improve patient care in San Diego.
“Surgery and women’s interests will be moving [to the Jacobs Medical Center], but everything else stays — trauma, emergency, AIDS/HIV, inpatient, outpatient,” Edwards said. “In fact, bed for bed, we’re going to have more room for people down here. So the complaints that are coming from Scripps are not right at all.”
According to Edwards, decreasing the number of beds from 321 to 300 is still more than enough to house the average 255 patients in the hospital daily, and removing services will increase the number of private patient rooms.
“The only service leaving Hillcrest [completely] is baby delivery,” Edwards said. “And that won’t happen for another six years.”
One of the main focuses of the new medical center — which will also house the Hospital for Advanced Surgery and the Hospital for Women and Infants — will be the Cancer Hospital, devoted to addressing the needs of patients afflicted with the No. 1 cause of death in San Diego County.
Of the predicted $664 million required for completion, the Jacobs Medical Center received $350 million from external sources — such as state bonds, reserves and capitalized leases — and $131 million from charity donors.
“We are extremely pleased to support this state-of-the-art medical center, which will provide both outstanding care for patients as well as resources for UC San Diego physicians, researchers and their colleagues across the La Jolla Mesa to rapidly translate medical research into improved health,” Irwin Jacobs said in a press release.
Jacobs — who also financed the Jacobs School of Engineering — served as a professor of computer science and engineering at UCSD from 1966 to 1972, and founded Fortune 500 company Qualcomm Incorporated in 1985. In 2003, he and his wife donated $110 million to the Jacobs School of Engineering.
“This will be the largest gift ever given to UC San Diego Health Sciences, and it is nearly impossible to express the depth of our gratitude,” Chancellor Marye Anne Fox said in a statement.
The new medical center will cover 490,000 square feet, and will stand 10 stories high. Construction is set to begin in 2012 and the hospital’s doors will be opened for patient care in December 2016.
Readers can contact Connie Qian at [email protected].
