La Jolla will have a new hospital in six years focused on cancer treatment, women and infants, and advanced surgery. The University of California, San Diego (UCSD) announced April 1 that it plans to build the 10-story-high Jacobs Medical Center next to its Thornton Hospital on the UCSD campus at a price of $664 million. The hospital will provide 245 patient beds. “Statistics tell us that with the aging population, San Diego will need 750 more beds by 2020,” said Debra Kain, spokeswoman for UCSD Health Sciences. The Sulpizio Family Cardiovascular Center is also slated to open in La Jolla next spring. In the six-year transition, UCSD will move its delivery and neonatal intensive-care unit from its Hillcrest medical center to La Jolla, Kain said. Instead of growing its inpatient services in Hillcrest, UCSD plans to reduce its number of beds by about 30 at its Hillcrest medical center by 2016, Kain said. Kain said UCSD is still committed to serving the downtown region at least through 2030. “We’re dedicated to staying in Hillcrest,” Kain said. “We’ve already invested $80 million, much of that is in seismic renovations.” But Chris Van Gorder, president and CEO of Scripps Health, said La Jolla doesn’t need another hospital. “La Jolla doesn’t need any more beds,” Van Gorder said. “This is not a growing community.” Van Gorder criticized UCSD for moving services out of the downtown region — where it serves more of the underinsured and uninsured — to a wealthy neighborhood. “They’re doing it for money, it’s as simple as that,” Van Gorder said. “… The problem is that it leaves a burden to Scripps and Sharp in the downtown area and South Bay.” Van Gorder believes legislators haven’t criticized UCSD for moving services out of Hillcrest because it’s a government-run hospital. Philanthropists Irwin and Joan Jacobs have pledged $75 million to the Jacobs Medical Center project. That would be the largest gift ever made to the UCSD health system. Irwin Jacobs co-founded Qualcomm, San Diego’s wireless telecommunications giant. UCSD plans to fund the rest of the medical center’s construction costs with $350 million from external financing, $131 million from philanthropy and $183 million from state bonds, reserves and capitalized leases. Construction for the Jacobs Medical Center is planned to begin in 2012 and the hospitals are expected to open for patients by 2016. Kain said the Jacobs Medical Center expects to create 1,800 jobs in construction alone.