Asian American foundation offers to purchase L.A. hospital to research coronavirus

Dr. Patrick Soon-Siong and his wife Michele Chang lead the foundation that wants to by an L.A. hospital.

ASAM NEWS

A family foundation has offered to buy an empty Los Angeles hospital and turn it into a hospital for coronavirus patients and research.
The Chan Soon-Shiong Family Foundation, led by Dr. Patrick Soon-Shiong and his wife, Michele B. Chan, would pay $135 million to purchase St. Vincent Medical Center out of bankruptcy, Patch reported Thursday (April 2).

According to a National Museum of American History interview, both Soon-Shiong and Chan are company executives and philanthropists who were born in South Africa to Chinese families. The Foundation Directory Online states the mission of the couple’s foundation is to fund research and erase disparities in access to healthcare and education.

In an interview with the LA Times, which he owns, Soon-Shiong said the goal is to turn St. Vincent into a center that would attract doctors and medical experts, as well as relieve pressure on other hospitals during the pandemic. He added that every city should have established similar “central command” centers, noting that “we are in a war zone now.”

Los Angeles County officials declared a state of emergency for the novel coronavirus on March 4. As of noon on April 2, the county has reported over 4,000 cases and 78 deaths.

According to Patch, St. Vincent had 366 beds at the time it closed in January. California Governor Gavin Newsom announced on March 20 that to increase capacity to care for COVID-19 patients, the state would lease St. Vincent and another medical center on a three-month basis for $30 million.

The Chan Soon-Shiong Family Foundation’s purchase would “bolster that effort,” Soon-Shiong told the LA Times, which he bought in 2018.

A judge approved the couple’s foundation as the lead bidder for St. Vincent on Wednesday, with competing offers required to be submitted within two days, Patch reported.

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St. Vincent Medical Center in Los Angeles.

Besides owning the L.A. Times, Soon-Shiong is a transplant surgeon, medical researcher with “more than 230 issued patents worldwide,” and owner of numerous medical companies and startups.

The LAT used the doctor's medical expertise early in the pandemic to produce an eight-part video series on the science behind the novel coronavirus, starring its owner.

If the sale goes through, Soon-Shiong told the LA Times St. Vincent’s infrastructure “needs a significant amount of work.” The State of California will be in charge of staffing the hospital once it opens and will pay $2.6 million a month to lease the facility, according to the LA Times.

Although it’s unclear whether St. Vincent Medical Center would continue operating as a hospital after the coronavirus outbreak recedes, Soon-Shiong mentioned the need to address issues of homelessness, mental health and poverty to the LA Times.

For now, he is focused on the present.

“(There) is an urgency in regards to COVID-19,” Soon-Shiong told the LA Times. “We literally have weeks before we have a huge surge.”

Views Frpm tje Edge contributed to this report.

Asian American billionaire buys Los Angeles Time and San Diego Union Tribune

Dr. Patrick Soon-Chiong

ASAM NEWS

A MULTI-BILLIONAIRE Asian/American doctor has bought the Los Angeles Times and San Diego Union Tribune from parent company Tronc for nearly $500-million, the company announced Wednesday (Feb. 7).

The Los Angeles Times reports the newspapers cash purchase from the Chicago-based Tronc media corporation by Dr. Patrick Soon-Shiong  came together quickly over the last five days.

“We look forward to continuing the great tradition of award-winning journalism carried out by the reporters and editors of the Los Angeles Times, the San Diego Union-Tribune and the other California News Group titles,” Soon-Shiong said in a statement.

It follows a period of turmoil for the Times. The paper has gone through a number of editors and publishers and it’s workers last month voted to unionize.

Soon-Shiong, 65, is a South African-born American surgeon whose worth is estimated at nearly $8 billion dollars by Forbes. He made his fortune in the biotech industry.

He is currently an adjunct professor of surgery at UCLA where he also leads the Wireless Health Institute. Soon-Shiong is also chair of Nantworks, a company which describes its single mission as delivering on “the true promise of The Cognitive Age…combining the collective promise of science, technology and communication. And then making it accessible to all people.”

He acquired his wealth - about $8-billion - from the sale of two of his companies which concentrated on cancer research and treatments.

He was born to Chinese immigrant parents who escaped the Japanese occupation of China in WWII, according to Wikipedia. He is number 55 on Forbes 400 list and became a doctor at age 23. He is also a minority owner of the L.A. Lakers.

What the sale means for the two papers is still to come, but analysts say it will take a lot for Soon-Shiong to turn the papers around. The newspaper industry in general, has suffered because of competition from newer forms of media. The  L.A. Times newsroom, which once 1000 journalists in the late 1990s,, is down to 400.

“Patrick Soon-Shiong is a doctor and I hope that he can stand the sight of blood because it is going to take a lot of investment to turn the paper around,” Gabriel Kahn, a journalism professor at the USC Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism, told the LA Times.

He sent a letter to the employees of both papers on Wednesday night, saying the decision to buy it is "deeply personal" for him and his family as residents of Southern California.

He says he's a great admirer of the work done on the newspapers and assures the staffs that he will give them the tools and resources they need to produce high-quality journalism.

His interest in journalism became public in mid-2016, when he invested $70.5 million in Tronc to help it fend off a buyout bid from Gannett, but he traced it to growing up in apartheid South Africa. As a minority investor, he has openly criticized the direction of Tronc was taking the newspapers.

“I believe it is critical to our democracy and our way of life that we have a strong, vibrant media,” he said in a statement announcing his purchase, “and that it continues to function as the Fourth Estate.”

(Views From the Edge contributed to this report. Updated, 11 p.m., Feb. 7.)

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