Key Cedars-Sinai Panel Urges AIDS Treatment Unit Approval

The top-ranking advisory committee at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center has recommended approval of a $2.5-million AIDS treatment unit, despite opposition from groups representing surgeons and the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology.

The vote late Monday night by the medical executive committee, which represents all health-care providers at the hospital, was considered an important victory for advocates of the 22-bed unit and outpatient clinic. The proposal now goes to the hospital board of directors for action, possibly in April.

“I think this does make a difference,” Dr. James Klinenberg, the hospital’s senior vice president for medical affairs, said of Monday’s vote, taken in a closed-door meeting. “This . . . committee represents the users of the hospital, the providers of care. On balance, they considered the program to be professionally, medically sound.”

The advisory vote was the last of seven such votes taken in recent weeks to help decide the fate of the controversial unit, which could open later this year. The unit was opposed by two advisory panels and was supported by the departments of medicine, nursing, pediatrics and psychiatry.

Supporters say the unit would provide improved nursing care, as well as necessary outpatient services and psychological counseling, for AIDS patients in West Hollywood and surrounding areas. Although Cedars-Sinai currently treats AIDS patients, those patients are now assigned to a number of different wards, depending on their symptoms.

Critics have questioned whether the hospital can afford to devote bed space, staffing and funds for the unit. The hospital already is deeply involved in launching new heart, lung and liver transplant programs, one surgeon pointed out.

The AIDS unit would be established by a $2.5-million donation tendered late last year by relatives and friends of Sheldon Andelson, a former University of California regent who died of AIDS in 1987. But the ward probably would require additional funding from federal grants or other sources, critics said.