BATAVIA — The Batavia Rotary Club hopes the community will accept its challenge to match the club’s $150,000 donation to United Memorial Medical Center with $150,000 of its own.
The reason for the challenge? UMMC wants to create an expanded, state-of-the-art Intensive Care Unit.
“We want to continue to provide the top notch quality care here — which there’s no doubt that we have the physicians and the nurses that provide that. Now we need the new state-of-the-art equipment to do that,” UMMC Director of Nursing Jessica Patnode said in a press release.
Rochester Regional Health-United Memorial Medical Center President Dan Ireland said he’s confident that the community is going to step up.
“Very grateful for the Rotary that has offered that $150,000 matching gift. I know our community values our health care locally here,” he said. “It’s time to update our ICU and get the latest technology for people to be cared for. I’m really hoping friends and neighbors will step up and give a donation.”
Ireland said the hospital anticipates starting work on the project in early 2024.
“The good news is all this work is mostly interior work to the hospital. It gives us the flexibility to start in the wintertime. It will take about a year to do the project, so if we start in the beginning, we hope to be done by the end of 2024,” he said.
The ICU renovation will include:
n an expanded ICU that will more than triple in size from current space;
n 10 private patient rooms with bathrooms;
n one bed dedicated to pediatric patients;
n central nurses station, with work stations outside each room;
n cutting edge technology in each room including integrated telemedicine and enhanced monitoring capabilities, and additional lift and transfer equipment in the rooms;
Those who donate $250 or more will see their names added to a donor wall, the Rotary Club said in a press release.
“The dedicated staff members in the United Memorial Medical Center Intensive Care Unit have always provided the highest quality care to patients who are often the sickest, most vulnerable and most in need at UMMC,” the club said. “Many staff members are local, taking care of their neighbors and friends. And they’re giving patients that committed care right where they want it — in their own communities, close to loved ones. Now, it’s our time to say thank you and give back.”
Ireland said getting their names on the wall is a good chance for community members to be recognized.
“That donor wall’s going to be inside the new entrance that just opened with our radiology project,” he said.
Batavia Rotary Past President Marlin Salmon said the club has many projects that come to it throughout the year.
“The requests are brought to our board and the board reviews them, discusses the merits and we act upon them. We felt that this was a very, very worthwhile project,” he said.
To donate you can go to: Support United Memorial Medical Center – Rochester Regional Health Foundations (rrhgive.org)
Ireland said the focus of the fundraising campaign will be the fall, but donations will be accepted after Dec. 31.
“As with any project, if we’re short on funding, we have to look at the amenities and the scope and what wen can do to get the cost down to the level. Every time you do that, you take away something from what the community needs. We want to keep in there what’s best for the community.,” he said. “We’re really hoping the community’s going to step up and make the commitment to this.”
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