Plans made in the fall had UC San Diego Health running financially distressed Tri-City Medical Center in Oceanside by the end of March, but the deal still is not complete.
Does this mean that the potential pact between the public university and the public health care district is doomed? Executives involved say no, though the particulars of a final arrangement, one that officials say the University of California Board of Regents is willing to approve, may not be exactly what was discussed last fall.
“We’re 100 percent committed to getting this done,” Patricia Maysent, UC San Diego Health’s chief executive officer, said in an interview on April 9. “It may not look exactly like what we talked about before. It might shift a little bit, but we really want to get this done so that we can stabilize that North County hospital and those communities.”
The original plan was for UC San Diego to assume Tri-City’s assets and debt, running the medical center through a joint powers authority controlled by the university, with minority representation from Tri-City.
As its name implies, Tri-City serves Carlsbad, Oceanside and Vista from its main campus on state Route 78. The nearest full-service hospitals to its core services area are 15 miles away in Encinitas and San Marcos, making the facility especially important in emergencies. Tri-City is far from alone in suffering severe financial distress following the COVID-19 pandemic. According to a 2023 report from the California Hospital Association, one in five California hospitals are at a risk of closure, though most are in rural areas.
North County, though, faces its own critical moment with local health care services as both Tri-City, and neighboring Palomar Health, are currently weathering severe financial headwinds.
UCSD’s interest in Tri-City, and in the purchase of Alvarado Hospital in La Mesa last year, is to reduce visits to its very busy main hospitals in La Jolla and Hillcrest which, unlike smaller outlying…
