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WMH Foundation Supports ‘The Little Hospital That Could’ Endowment

Celebrating the success of the 2020 annual campaign are Westfield Memorial Hospital Foundation Executive Board members, standing left, Patricia Gaughan DiPalma, executive director; Dr. Kathryn Bronstein, foundation board president; and Colleen Meeder, foundation board secretary. Seated from left are Jon Northrop, vice president; and Christine Adams, treasurer.

WESTFIELD — Donors to the Westfield Memorial Hospital Foundation contributed close to $280,000 during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic to support the foundation’s mission.

With its partner, Allegheny Health Network, AHN-Westfield Memorial Hospital worked to be among the first in the area to disperse the available COVID-19 vaccine to doctors, nurses, healthcare workers, frontline essential workers, and those 75 years and older, during the first six weeks of 2021.

The Westfield Memorial Hospital Foundation 2020 annual campaign focused on growing the foundation’s endowment to guarantee money for the continuation of important hospital services for years to come. In recognition of the importance of the initiative, officials at Allegheny Health Network gave a $100,000 gift to help kick-off the endowment in mid-October.

With a chance to double their contribution, 20 donors met the challenge presented by a number of loyal supporters who had pledged to match dollar for dollar donations up to $1,000. These gifts, received in the final months of the year, garnered a total of $20,000 for the hospital foundation.

The 18-month campaign slogan, “The Little Hospital That Could,” reflects on the hospital’s stellar history of providing care while at the same time recognizes the hospital’s future needs.

Friends of the hospital and the foundation are clearly aware that donations to the endowment would not only help to ensure the survival of the hospital for years to come, but will also allow the hospital to protect the community, in an immediate and palpable way.

Previous contributions have made it possible for WMH to survive amidst recent wide-spread closures of rural community hospitals throughout the U.S.

“The once-every-100-years pandemic has shown just how essential our rural hospital is to the communities it serves,” said Patricia Gaughan DiPalma, Westfield Memorial Hospital Foundation executive director, noting how the long-term effects of the coronavirus outbreak will be profound for years to come.

DiPalma also expressed gratitude to the donors who deeply value having a hospital close to them.

“It’s exciting and gratifying to know they recognize healthcare and essential workers as the real heroes during this once-in-a-lifetime pandemic and that our community esteems The Little Hospital That Could now more than ever,” DiPalma said.

Because 2020 has been so unsettling and uncertain, hospital officials said they recognize the importance of endowments. Donors are encouraged to continue to give to the endowment so the foundation can meet its $1 million campaign goal by the spring of 2022.

“We are grateful to all those who realized the importance of creating a sustainable future for our organization which is more than evident in the aftermath of the deadly virus than ever before,” said Dr. Kathryn S. Bronstein, foundation president. “We are most appreciative of our community who knows the value of investing in a healthy future by giving to this new endowment initiative now.”

She said with the continued approval from the community, the foundation will be able to provide revenue in perpetuity, which is critical to support the rural hospital.

For more information, call DiPalma at patricia.dipalma@ahn.org; call 793-2338 or visit www.westfieldhospitalfoundation.org.

In addition to emergency care, the hospital provides an array of services, including ambulatory and short stay surgery, outpatient diagnostic services, physical therapy: post-op; general; lymphedema, pain management; pelvic floor health, back care — McKenzie method and health fitness; cardiac rehab, imaging, women’s diagnostic services, digital mammography, laboratory, diabetes education, nuclear stress testing, wound and infusion clinics, inpatient care, and a specialty services suite that includes OB-GYN services, General Surgery, Telehealth — Endocrinology, Gastrointestinal (GI), Orthopedics, Cardiology and Diversified Hearing Services. WMH also provides primary care services at the Chautauqua Institution during its nine week summer season.

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