French Hauls in $2.4 Million From Donor for Cardiac Care
By Melanie Cleveland, The Tribune, San Luis Obispo, Calif.
Mar. 7–Another prominent San Luis Obispo County family has stepped in with a sizable donation to French Hospital Medical Center’s new cardiac care center days after the hospital announced a $2.1 million gift from four local families.
The newest donor, who asked to remain anonymous, gave the Catholic Healthcare West hospital a check for $2.4 million to help fund the $8 million project, which hospital officials say will improve the level of cardiac care in the county.
The center will feature the latest equipment, two new catheterization labs and an expanded cardiac intensive-care unit.
French Hospital received the check after the donor read a story in The Tribune on Sunday about the new center, said Alan Iftiniuk, the hospital’s chief executive officer.
The story noted that four families — Jim and Sandy Copeland, Tom and Pam Copeland, Bert and Candace Forbes, and Rob and Laurie Rossi — have pledged $2.1 million toward the center to be named the Copeland, Forbes and Rossi Cardiac Care Center at French Hospital Medical Center.
Catholic Healthcare West, which also owns Arroyo Grande Community Hospital and Marian Medical Center in Santa Maria, is contributing an additional $4 million.
The two donations were “precedent setting,” Iftiniuk said.
“To the best of our knowledge, no gifts of this size have gone to a not-for-profit hospital before,” he said. “It really speaks to the wonderful generosity of members of this community and their faith and confidence in the care team we have here at the hospital.”
With the $100,000 donation made by the Sargen family to start the hospital’s fundraising campaign less than two months ago, and the $4 million put in initially by CHW, the hospital has now surpassed its $8 million goal.
The additional $600,000 in donations will be directed to a new cardiac MRI unit, a machine that will provide detailed images of a patient’s heart and will cost about $1.5 million.
“We still need to raise about $900,000 for that final phase,” Iftiniuk said.
The first new cath lab is slated to open in April. When the hospital is sure physicians and other members of the cardiac care team are comfortable with the new equipment, it will tear down its current cath lab and rebuild it with the latest equipment as a second lab. The two labs will allow staff to perform multiple elective and emergency procedures at the same time, he added.
Iftiniuk estimated the second lab would be operating in July. No date has been set for the hospital’s new cardiac MRI, but it should be installed and in use by the end of the year. The new cardiac intensive-care unit should also be open within the year.
With the new center, the hospital hopes to double the number of heart patients. French performs about 150 open heart surgeries and 900 procedures such as angiograms and angioplasties each year.
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Copyright (c) 2007, The Tribune, San Luis Obispo, Calif.
Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Business News.
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