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UCSF to Benefit from Children's Hospital Bond Measure

November 04, 2004
Contact: News Office (415) 476-2557

Voter approval of state Proposition 61, the children's hospital bond measure, means an infusion of state funding for children's hospitals across the state. The measure, approved on Nov. 2, authorizes $750 million in state general obligation bonds for grants to children's hospitals. Each of the five University of California children's hospitals will be eligible for $30 million, which adds up to 20 percent of total funding from the state proposition.

"The passage of this bond is very important for UCSF Children's Hospital," said Mark Laret, CEO of UCSF Medical Center. "As we embark upon developing a new children's hospital, these funds will be used as seed money for a state-of-the-art children's hospital at Mission Bay to serve the children and families of the Bay Area and all of California. I thank the voters of California for their generosity and commitment to children's health."

Dr. Sam Hawgood, director of neonatology and physician-in-chief of UCSF Children's Hospital, echoed Laret's sentiments. "It is gratifying that the people of California recognize the importance of children's hospitals," Hawgood said. "Children need centers of excellence where the doctors, staff and facilities are prepared to care for patients as small as a premature baby and as big as a high-school football player. At UCSF Children's Hospital, we offer this care in a hub of pediatric expertise, where advances in science are translated quickly into improvement in care for complex medical conditions."

UCSF administrators in August unveiled a plan to develop integrated specialty hospitals including a UCSF Children's Hospital, a UCSF Women's Hospital and the first phase of a UCSF Cancer Hospital on the Mission Bay campus by 2013, together with outpatient facilities and a new translational research center to speed the transfer of new medical knowledge to clinical practice.

Funds that come from Proposition 61 are critical to UCSF since any new hospital construction must be financed through multiple sources, such as retained earnings from medical center operations, loans and private donations. Preliminary estimates indicate that the first phase at Mission Bay -- including acquiring land, making infrastructure improvements and constructing medical facilities, a central utility plant and parking -- would cost between $500 million and $1 billion, according to campus officials.