Local developer and philanthropist Conrad Prebys gave $45 million to Scripps’ Health’s cardiovascular center, which is under construction. The donation was Prebys’ largest single donation and the largest donation Scripps Health has received to date.
The cardiovascular institute is the cornerstone of a 25-year master plan that will update, expand and transform the campus. The facility will be named the Prebys Cardiovascular Institute. The $465 million cardiovascular institute with 108 inpatient beds, 60 intensive care beds, six operating rooms and six catheterization labs is scheduled to be open to patient care in 2015.
“Conrad Prebys’ ongoing generosity to Scripps Health and the entire San Diego community is reminiscent of the same spirit of philanthropy established by Ellen Browning Scripps when she founded Scripps Memorial Hospital and Scripps Metabolic Clinic 87 years ago,” said Scripps President and CEO Chris Van Gorder in the announcement.
Prebys recalled an accident as a child that resulted in a life-threatening cardiac infection that forced him to be bedridden for a year.
“That experience from my childhood never left me,” said Prebys in an announcement. “Now here I am, part of what will be the best heart care center there is, with the greats of the medical world, research and innovation that will help mankind. There’s nothing like being part of the best. That’s how I feel about this institute.”
Prebys has supported the Old Globe, San Diego Opera, San Diego Zoo and Sanford-Burnham Medical Research Institute; he even has a concert hall named for him, the Conrad Prebys Concert Hall, on UC San Diego’s campus.
“I’ve embraced Andrew Carnegie’s philosophy that excess wealth is a sacred trust which its possessor is bound to administer in his lifetime for the good of the community,” said Prebys in the announcement.”
