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California State Treasurer Fiona Ma announced today that Loma Linda University Children’s Hospital (LLUCH) was awarded $135 million in grant funding through the Children’s Hospital Bond Act of 2018. The grant of voter-approved bond funds was awarded by the California Health Facilities Financing Authority (CHFFA), which is chaired by Treasurer Ma.
“CHFFA approved $135 million in grant funding to support a significant expansion in access to care for critically ill and vulnerable children in San Bernardino, Riverside, Inyo, and Mono counties,” said Treasurer Ma. “Building on a previous CHFFA award to support expansion of a new Children’s Tower at Loma Linda, these funds will make a life-saving difference and improve health equity in our state by making quality care available to a population that is a majority Medi-Cal patients.”
The CHFFA award will be used to fund six major LLUCH projects that expand the hospital’s capacity to serve children in the four-county region with both physical and mental health care, modernize critical infrastructure, and keep LLUCH on the cutting edge of care. The projects to be funded are the following:
- Construction of a new pediatric Medical Office Building, which will house 23 existing subspecialty clinics under one roof, with an increased number of exam rooms, allowing LLUCH to see approximately 15,000 additional pediatric patients annually.
- Expansion of the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU), which will add nine single-bed NICU rooms at LLUCH and increase capacity to serve an additional 150 NICU patients annually.
- Relocation and expansion of the Pediatric Oncology and Infusion Center, which will increase the number of pediatric infusion chairs, exam rooms and infusion beds, and will allow LLUCH to go from completing 9,000 infusions annually to 11,700.
- Renovation of the pediatric Operating Rooms that are over 30 years old. The new equipment and renovation materials to be used will both improve quality outcomes for patients as well as decrease cleaning time between surgeries and will allow LLUCH to serve approximately 250 more pediatric patients annually.
- Addition of a new 48-bed pediatric Psychiatric Inpatient Unit, which will provide intensive care treatment in a safe and controlled environment and expects to have 2,615 admissions annually.
- Reimbursement of eligible pediatric equipment including, but not limited to, a surgical robot used for pediatric minimally invasive surgeries, allowing the performance of surgeries with greater accuracy and precision.
Through CHFFA’s Children’s Hospital Programs, LLUCH was awarded a total of $172.9 million ($74.9 million under Proposition 61, the Children’s Hospital Bond Act of 2004 and $98 million under Proposition 3, the Children’s Hospital Bond Act of 2008) to construct the new Children’s Hospital Tower at the new Dennis and Carol Troesh Medical Campus and to purchase various pediatric equipment.
The Children’s Hospital Bond Act of 2018 (Proposition 4), passed by California voters on November 6, 2018, permitted the State of California to issue $1.5 billion in general obligation bonds to fund the Children’s Hospital Program of 2018. The purpose of the program is to improve the health and welfare of California’s critically ill children by providing a stable and ready source of funds for capital improvement projects for children’s hospitals. CHFFA aims to help vulnerable pediatric populations by expanding access to healthcare, inspiring healthcare improvements, and promoting pediatric teaching and research programs.
LLUCH is a 364-bed nonprofit acute care pediatric hospital in San Bernardino County that serves as the sole children’s hospital for 1.2 million children. Its 84-bed NICU is one of the largest in the county, providing the highest level of care to high-risk pediatric patients.
For more information on the Children’s Hospital Programs, to apply for grant funding, or learn about other grant funding opportunities, please visit CHFFA’s website.
