Philanthropist and longtime UC San Diego donor Pauline Foster is giving $7.5 million to support a new cancer care hospital at the Jacobs Medical Center, the university announced Thursday.
Foster said her gift comes from the heart because both her husband, Stanley, and her brother died of cancer.
“I felt that the best thing I could do would be to make sure that other people had beds and had the opportunity to have the kind of care that would help, and hopefully cure them,” she said.
The 108-bed hospital will be named “The Pauline and Stanley Foster Hospital for Cancer Care” and comprise three floors of the Jacobs Medical Center, which is currently under construction and projected to open in 2016.
The Foster hospital will be home to medical staff specially trained in caring for the complex needs of patients with cancer. It will be the only in-patient facility of its kind in San Diego County, which is the fifth largest in the United States, and where cancer is the No. 1 cause of death.
The new hospital will double UC San Diego Health System’s capacity to treat patients with every form of malignancy.
“Thanks to Pauline Foster’s generous gift, The Pauline and Stanley Foster Hospital for Cancer Care will offer patients hope and healing as they receive the most advanced treatment and support services,” said UC San Diego Chancellor Pradeep K. Khosla. “Offering this type of state-of-the art facility to our community and beyond truly fits UC San Diego’s strategic vision.”
The Foster family has a long history of supporting UC San Diego. Their support has included the Shiley Eye Center by establishing the Abraham Ratner Children’s Eye Center and the Ratner Eye Mobile which were originally funded by Pauline’s mother, Anne Ratner; the Rady School of Management by creating the $5 million Stanley and Pauline Foster Endowed Chair and the Stanley Foster Symposium; and providing fellowship support with a lead gift to the “Invent the Future” campaign, creating the Foster MBA Fellowship Fund with a $2.5 million gift.
Foster served as a trustee and chair of the UC San Diego Foundation from 2002 to 2010, and received the Chancellor’s Medal in 2010.
“I support the university because of the huge impact it has had on the growth of San Diego,” Foster said. “I think the university has given residents so many opportunities.”
Pauline Foster’s gift of $7.5 million was matched one-to-one thanks to a $25 million Jacobs Medical Center Challenge gift from an anonymous donor.
