By Chris Rauber

San Francisco General Hospital & Trauma Center, the city's primary safety net hospital, is hiring more than 100 registered nurses to help it staff the new $877 million inpatient tower expected to open in December.

The new RNs are needed in specialty areas such as emergency care, medical-surgical, critical care and peri-operative services, officials said Monday, and "nurses with acute care experience" are especially in demand.

The salary range for the positions starts at $112,788 and "tops out at $148,174," depending on experience, said Rachael Kagan, a spokeswoman for S.F. General.

"We're always hiring nurses" due to attrition, Kagan said, but in this case the hospital is also looking to meet new needs since the tower will feature an expanded ER, critical care unit and other specialty areas.

"We hope the new building, design, technology and related training will make it an attractive option," she said.

S.F. General, part of San Francisco's Department of Public Health and its San Francisco Health Network, is also targeting potential hires who speak Spanish, Cantonese and other languages that come in handy in dealing with San Francisco's diverse population.

The hospital's new nine-story, 283-bed tower is being funded primarily by an $887.4 million bond issue approved by San Francisco voters seven years ago. In addition, early last month Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg and wife Priscilla Chan, M.D., gave $75 million to help fund the facility, which will be known as the Priscilla and Mark Zuckerberg San Francisco General Hospital and Trauma Center in recognition of the gift.

The hospital's new $887.4 million inpatient tower will double the size of the existing facility's ER, include a large number of private rooms, and increase the size of many specialized areas of care, officials say. San Francisco General treats roughly 100,000 patients annually and provides inpatient care to 20 percent of the city's tally each year.

The Department of Public Health is holding a job fair for experienced RNs on March 28 at Laguna Honda Hospital and Rehabilitation Center in San Francisco, to help fill its S.F. General hiring needs.

Sue Currin, S.F. General's CEO, is a former nurse who worked as chief nursing officer and COO before taking the top job in 2009.

Like many hospitals in the Bay Area and elsewhere in the Golden State, San Francisco General is rebuilding both to meet California's tough seismic safety requirements for inpatient facilities and to modernize to attract and retain patients, doctors, nurses and other staffers in a highly competitive health-care environment.