UCSF/STANFORD: REGENTS COMMITTEE VOTE CLEARS MERGER
A "key" committee of the University of California regentsThis is part of the California Healthline Daily Edition, a summary of health policy coverage from major news organizations. Sign up for an email subscription.
voted yesterday to merge the University of California at San
Francisco (UCSF) Medical Center with Stanford University Medical
Center. Dr. Tirso del Junco, regent board chairman, who had
"previously been one of the merger's most outspoken critics,"
joined the committee in the unanimous vote to recommend that the
full Board of Regents approve the merger. He said, "My fellow
regents have been interested in this issue as much as anything
they've seen in the last ten years. ... As chairman I must give
the benefit of the doubt to the UCSF administrators." SAN
FRANCISCO CHRONICLE reports that the vote "made it clear that
regent approval of the merger was a virtual certainty, and only
court intervention could stop it." The merger "would combine
UCSF Medical Center, Mount Zion Medical Center, Stanford
University Medical Center and Lucile Packard Children's Hospital
under a single nonprofit corporation." The new nonprofit
corporation that will run the merged hospitals would be named
UCSF Stanford Health Center, or USHC.
OPPOSITION: Leaders of several UCSF unions denounced the
vote and "vowed to go to court today to seek a temporary order
that would block the merger, on grounds that the regents have
failed to share information about the deal with affected
employees." The unions also charge that the "merger would
irreparably damage work conditions, pension benefits and UCSF's
commitment to research and care for the poor." CHRONICLE reports
that the "full board of regents is expected to follow the
committee recommendation" today (Russell, 11/14).