Nurses Want Zuckerberg's Name Off Hospital

Patients are concerned about privacy, they say
By Evann Gastaldo,  Newser Staff
Posted May 16, 2018 12:47 PM CDT
Nurses Want Zuckerberg's Name Removed From SF General Hospital
This photo taken Friday, Nov. 13, 2015, shows an exterior view of Zuckerberg San Francisco General Hospital in San Francisco.   (AP Photo/Eric Risberg)

How would you feel about being a patient at Zuckerberg San Francisco General Hospital? For some patients, having the Facebook founder's name plastered on the hospital is worrisome—and over the weekend, nurses at the hospital staged a protest to push for Zuck's name to be removed, ABC 7 reports. They even covered over his name on the hospital's sign with blue tape. After Facebook's recent privacy scandals, "People are afraid," one nurse tells CBS San Francisco. "I’ve spoken with people who have said, 'I’m afraid to tell my doctor anything, because I don’t know who is going to get that information.'" San Francisco General was renamed after Mark Zuckerberg and his wife Priscilla donated $75 million in 2015 to help the facility build its trauma center.

"We don’t think it makes sense for San Francisco General Hospital to be publicly associated with an organization that doesn’t care about confidentiality," says another nurse. "Confidentiality is so crucial to providing quality health care." Their union is looking to make the issue a ballot measure so voters can decide. But the city's mayor says there's no connection between Facebook privacy issues and the hospital's name, noting that the city needs to support and thank "individuals that contribute to ... the safety of our residents." A former San Francisco supervisor, however, says he regrets backing the renaming of the hospital, but "understood that if I were to vote against it, we would lose $75 million to open the hospital up." (More San Francisco stories.)

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