The Mercury News15%
UCSF shifts specialized children’s care between Oakland and San Francisco, raising travel concerns 62%
By Grant Stringer90%
7/18/2026, 11:00:16 AM
BS Summary: This article contains 25 faulty reasoning types, including Optimism Bias, Framing Effect, and Appeal to Authority, with Negativity Bias as the most egregious example at 15.8% saturation with 151 hits. Analysis detected 1,397 faulty-reasoning hits from 954 analyzed words, generating a BS Score of 58% and a BS Rank of 62% (6,777 of 17,815 articles). This article is worse (more manipulative) than 62.00% of the article peer group.
UCSF Health is shuffling highly specialized pediatric services between its Oakland and San Francisco hospitals, a strategy administrators say will strengthen care but workers warn could add travel burdens for vulnerable East Bay families.
Inpatient bone marrow transplants are no longer performed at Benioff Children’s Oakland.
For that care, six or seven East Bay patients a year must travel to its sister hospital on the Mission Bay campus in San Francisco, said Nicholas Holmes, president of UCSF Benioff Children’s Hospitals.
Administrators will also send Oakland patients to San Francisco for complex cardiac surgeries like heart transplants, he said.
At the same time, the Oakland hospital is treating more children, including those from San Francisco, with traumatic injuries or cancers, Holmes said, and is expected to receive more patients with cardiology issues.
Holmes said consolidating specialized procedures and treatments at separate facilities will allow UCSF’s hospitals to hone their expertise, while minimally disrupting patients.
The move resembles a strategy supported by some health economists to improve care and efficiency, at a time when health spending continues to rise nationally.
The idea is to centralize specialized treatments at regional “centers of excellence” with investments in tools and staff, rather than offering the same services at each hospital in a network.
“Most health economists have been disappointed that this hasn’t happened more,” said Glenn Melnick, a professor at the USC Price School of Public Policy who studies health markets.
The downside, according to Melnick: some patients may have to travel more for some types of care.
That’s unacceptable to some health professionals working at the Oakland children’s hospital — one of the few level one trauma centers for children in California, and a longtime source of health care and community pride in the East Bay.
Dozens of providers held a rally outside of the Oakland hospital last week to condemn the shake-up in services and demand that UCSF administrators consult them when making decisions that affect patients.
The removal of inpatient bone marrow transplant treatments from Oakland is a new source of tension.
The procedure, also known as a stem cell transplant, is used to treat blood cancers and bone marrow diseases by infusing patients with healthy cells.
According to UCSF, the long-term survival rate for children with genetic diseases is above 80% after a bone marrow transplant.
For children with sickle cell disease, a blood disorder that disproportionately affects African Americans and can lead to death, cure rates as high as 95% have been reported with bone marrow transplants.
At UCSF, children who undergo this treatment may stay at the hospital for up to two months, a spokesperson said in an email.
That treatment used to be available at both hospital campuses.
Holmes said UCSF made the decision to offer that care only in San Francisco starting in November 2025 because so few East Bay patients required it in Oakland, and these procedures are only possible with specialized staff and equipment.
But Paola Portillo, a clinical social worker and therapist who works with children in the Oakland hospital’s outpatient bone marrow transplant clinic, said families in the East Bay must now travel regularly to the San Francisco hospital.
“These kids and families don’t need additional obstacles to be healthy and safe,” Portillo said.
The UCSF Health spokesperson, Jess Berthold, said care teams arrange transportation for families when needed, including Uber or Lyft rides.
But she said fewer than 1% of the health network’s patients travel between campuses.
Administrators do not expect that number to rise as services are relocated.
The University Professional & Technical Employees union represents about 375 workers at the hospital — mainly social workers and in behavioral health — and organized the rally last week.
The union did not make any patients or additional employees available to describe how the changes had affected their care or work.
Portillo said the added travel will impact especially vulnerable patients.
Many are undocumented and do not speak English as their first language, she said.
More than 70% of patients were covered in 2023 by Medi-Cal, the safety net insurance program for low-income families, nearly double the statewide average, state data shows.
At Benioff Children’s Oakland, management and program decisions are made by UCSF administrators.
All 2,800 employees at the once-independent hospital now work for the university system.
Relations between management and Oakland staffers have been strained for years and punctuated by labor strikes.
Since the hospital affiliated with UCSF in 2014, workers have accused university administrators of cutting services and creating poor working conditions that led to departures of physicians and other providers.
Last summer, UCSF Health completed its integration with the Oakland hospital when its health professionals became employees of the university system.
Workers were fiercely opposed, describing the moment as a “full takeover” of the hospital by UCSF Health.
Workers with a separate union, the National Union of Healthcare Workers, went on strike to oppose the integration.
Holmes, the hospital president, said UCSF Health is pouring investment into the Oakland hospital, not removing care from the East Bay.
He pointed to a $1.6 billion project to build a new hospital tower on the Oakland hospital campus.
Motivated in part by California’s looming earthquake safety regulations for hospitals, which go into effect in 2030, the new hospital will include an expanded emergency department, modernized operating rooms, a new neonatal intensive care unit and more.
Construction is slated to wrap up in 2031.
“I don’t know what kind of organization would invest that kind of money if we were trying to push care away or divert care from Oakland patients,” Holmes said.
Bay Area News Group reporter Chase Hunter contributed to this story.
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