Majority Leader supports MLK hospital partnership
Regents to vote Thursday on plan to reopen facility in medically underserved community

LOS ANGELES – Senate Majority Leader Dean Florez (D-Shafter) will attend this morning’s meeting of the UC Board of Regents to voice his strong support for a partnership between UC and Los Angeles County that would reopen Martin Luther King hospital, providing much-needed medical care to a community that has been underserved since the hospital’s closing in 2007.

Regents will vote today on a proposal for UC and the county to create a non-profit to run the hospital, which should reopen by 2013, with university physicians. 

Billionaire health care visionary and philanthropist Patrick Soon-Shiong has offered a $100 million guaranty to underwrite the $63 million a year cost of operating the 120-bed facility, as have Los Angeles County officials.  According to the Los Angeles Times, the plan was endorsed today by leaders of six major Southern California health foundations, including Kaiser Foundation Health Plan, Catholic Healthcare West and the California Endowment.

“The university and the county have a golden opportunity, supported by some of the most forward-thinking minds in medicine -- like Patrick Soon-Shiong, to bring medical care to a community that is in dire need,” said Florez, a past student body president at UCLA.  “In my mind, it is not only an opportunity but a moral imperative.”

Today’s vote of the Committee on Health Services of the UC Board of Regents is scheduled for 9:15 a.m. at Covel Commons on the UCLA campus.

*** MEDIA ADVISORY *** MEDIA ADVISORY *** MEDIA ADVISORY ***

WHO:             Senate Majority Leader Dean Florez, D-Shafter

WHAT:           UC Board of Regents vote on MLK hospital partnership proposal
 
WHEN:           Thursday, November 19, 2009
                        9:15 a.m. (or upon adjournment of previous committee)
 
WHERE:         Covel Commons, UCLA Campus; Los Angeles, CA  90095