Tuesday, March 3, 1998
Community Briefs
Med Center allies with Orthopaedic Hospital
UCLA Medical Center and the School of Medicine have signed an
agreement with the downtown Orthopaedic Hospital, which will
provide increased community healthcare in downtown Los Angeles.
Under the agreement, UCLA will provide Orthopaedic Hospital,
located on Flower Street, new outpatient clinics in pediatrics,
women’s health and family medicine. The new services will allow
Orthopaedic to double its number of patients to approximately 150
per day. The clinics will be financially supported by UCLA, as will
the free care given through the Orthopaedic Hospital’s
International Children’s Program.
Orthopaedic Hospital is the most comprehensive treatment
facility in the Western United States for musculoskeletal
conditions in adults and children.
In 2003, Orthopaedic Hospital will move inpatients to the Santa
Monica/UCLA facility. Currently, the Orthopaedic Hospital sees
about 18 inpatients per day.
In addition to the clinical benefits, "the new relationship will
bring together two outstanding orthopaedic research laboratories
which will focus on bio-medical engineering and the genetics and
molecular biology of bone disease," said Gerald Levey, provost of
the school of medicine.
Both organizations will remain independent, with their own
governance boards and separate budgets.
UC assistants find help in Sacramento
Three Sacramento lawmakers lent their support to unionization
efforts of UC teaching assistants on Monday, urging the UCs to
recognize tutors, readers and teaching assistants (TAs),
collectively known as academic student employees (ASEs.)
"For a union to get the kind of support it has at UC and for the
UC to ignore this is unconscionable," said State Assembly Speaker
Antonio Villaraigosa. "A public university that receives such a
high level of funding from the state … should respect the fact
that the workers have spoken."
Villaraigosa appeared with Assembly members Dion Aroner and Fred
Keeley at a press conference in Sacramento, where UAW-SAGE
presented 5,000 letters from ASEs, calling for union
recognition.
SAGE has received increasing support for their campaign in the
Assembly: This summer, 32 legislators wrote to the UCs asking that
they support TA unionization.
UC letter drive seeks more federal aid
UC Berkeley students, in conjunction with students from other UC
campuses, participated in a letter drive to Congress last week in
an attempt to lobby for increased financial aid.
Chapter members from the California Public Interest Research
Group on seven of the nine UC campuses are organizing the event.
Members said they plan to send letters and videotaped messages
collected on UC campuses from Tuesday through Thursday to Rep. John
Kasich, R-Ohio, chair of the House Budget Committee.
"We are asking students to mail letters to Kasich to make him
aware that students in California want increases in financial aid
allocations," said ASUC External Vice President Sanjeev Bery.
The letter asked Kasich to take a series of steps to "protect
access to higher education."
The letter requested an increase in graduate fellowships, a
decrease in student loan costs and a raise in the maximum for a
Pell Grant to $3,400 for the 1999 fiscal year.
"In the past five years, the average federal loan debt for
students at four-year schools has risen by $4,400," the letter
stated. "It is becoming more and more difficult for students to
afford a college degree."
Compiled from Daily Bruin staff and wire reports.