UCSF Medical Center at Mission Bay Reaches Fundraising Milestone

The fundraising campaign to build the new UCSF Medical Center at Mission Bay achieved a major milestone, surpassing the $400-million mark in philanthropic gifts. This brings the campaign more than two-thirds of the way to its $600-million goal.

Construction of the hospital complex for children, women and cancer patients is well underway – on schedule and on budget. A model of innovative and sustainable design, the 289-bed hospital complex will open in early 2015, and be the city’s first new medical center in decades. At present, the installation of the exterior walls and glass is almost complete. Inside the buildings, the 6th floor interior walls now enclose extensive utilities as the progress rapidly moves down each floor of the buildings.

The new medical center will include the new 183-bed UCSF Benioff Children’s Hospital, providing urgent and emergency care, primary care and specialty outpatient services; a women’s hospital offering cancer care, specialty surgery and a 36-bed birth center; and a 70-bed adult hospital for cancer patients along with select outpatient cancer services. An on-site helipad will improve access to lifesaving care for critically ill patients.

In addition to the charitable gifts received from individuals and foundations, the hospital project is funded through a combination of debt financing and hospital reserves. Apart from Children’s Hospital bonds, authorized to all children’s hospitals in California, none of the project’s costs will be paid by state taxpayers.

This financing plan has effectively removed any financial burden from the state and minimized the amount of money coming from California taxpayers, explained Laret.

The UCSF Medical Center at Mission Bay is the only capital project in the history of the University of California to attract two gifts of $100 million or more. In March 2009, The Atlantic Philanthropies and its founder Charles F. Feeney made a $125 million matching gift, followed by a $100 million private donation from Lynne and Marc Benioff in June 2010 to the since-renamed UCSF Benioff Children’s Hospital.

“It’s motivating to see the tangible, structural progress of the new hospitals,” said Laret. “This medical center is being built for the state, nation and world by visionary philanthropists, and we invite others who share our goal of better, more effective care for all, to join us in these efforts.”

The combination of children’s, women’s and cancer services in the new medical center will facilitate continuity of care for patients, with mothers of at-risk infants delivering immediately adjacent to the neonatal intensive care unit, and adult and pediatric oncologists working side-by-side.

In addition, the integration of the hospital complex with UCSF’s 42.5-acre biomedical research campus at Mission Bay will facilitate interaction between the research and clinical care programs, speeding the application of laboratory discoveries to the treatment of patients in the Bay Area and beyond.

“The steel structures that have risen from the site are changing the San Francisco skyline and the future of health care, by providing a new home to deliver the most advanced, safe, high-quality care,” said Laret.