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Review of SFGH

Just received a plea for financial help "Who answe...

Just received a plea for financial help "Who answers the call?", in, of all places, the Los Angeles Times. I'm very sympathetic to the plight of these big budget-constrained general hospitals, who's ER takes the place of a decent health care delivery system for many, many people (we'd trade our mish mash of convoluted Medicare/Blue Cross coverage in a heart beat for what we have in Spain). We have a grand daughter who now must go to the new UCSF Medical Center, less than a mile away, for organ transplant rejection testing and it's striking that these two medical centers are LESS THAN ONE MILE APART. Wouldn't the operations of both be considerably rationalized through a merger and joint operating agreement? Why does it make sense, for example, for SFGH to maintain a big cancer treatment presence when the new UCSF center prominently features a huge cancer center? These hospital mergers are quite common. Why not here? Having served on the boards of two quite proximate community hospitals that we were able to merge, our experience was all positive. Might such a change help deal with the way-too-frequent complaints posted in the Reviews, while preserving and the making of an easier life for the excellent medical staff. The conversion of general hospitals to teaching hospitals is also quite common. Finally, would Obama Care help support such a merger? Since the SFGH website map does not even recognize the existence of UCSF-Mission Bay, doesn't this speak volumes about the likely hood for cooperation? Who's in charge at the state or county level in overseeing the rationalization of issues such as this?