California Hospital News Roundup for the Week of Sept. 12, 2008
On Tuesday, officials for Fremont-Rideout Health Group announced that they would maintain inpatient services at Biggs-Gridley Memorial Hospital if an outside organization would pledge to cover the financial losses entailed in running the hospital as an inpatient facility, McClatchy/Marysville Appeal-Democrat reports.
Last week, Fremont-Rideout officials said they would end inpatient services at the 30-bed facility by the end of the year after sustaining financial losses for more than a decade. Fremont-Rideout has proposed operating a 24-hour urgent care center at the site.
The hospital's foundation is working to secure $250,000 in donations and a $250,000 credit line to maintain inpatient services at the hospital (Yune, McClatchy/Marysville Appeal-Democrat, 9/10).
On Tuesday, San Joaquin Community Hospital announced a $300,000 donation from the Aera Energy Fund to help fund the hospital's new burn center, the Bakersfield Californian reports.
The project is expected to cost about $1 million in addition to a $1 million endowment to fund care for pediatric burn victims, according to hospital spokesperson Jarrod McNaughton.
The burn center is slated to open in December (Bakersfield Californian, 9/9).
Last month, San Mateo County supervisors approved the merger of San Mateo Medical Center with the San Mateo County Health Department, the San Francisco Business Times reports. The merged entity will be known as San Mateo Health System.
The plan was based on recommendations from an advisory task force and consulting firm Health Management Associates (Rauber, San Francisco Business Times, 9/5).
On Sept. 10, UC-San Francisco was scheduled to break ground on a $42 million complex to house its Osher Center for Integrative Medicine, which now is located throughout UCSF Medical Center, the Business Times reports.
The complex is set to have five stories and span 48,000 square feet. Officials expect to occupy the new facility beginning in late 2009 or early 2010 (Rauber, San Francisco Business Times, 9/5).