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January
LVH Receives Personal Thank You for its Donation to Mississippi Hospital Employees Who Are Struggling Financially After Hurricane KatrinaLehigh Valley, Pa. (Jan. 19, 2006)A representative of Memorial Hospital in Gulfport, Miss. delivered a personal thank you to the administration and staff at Lehigh Valley Hospital (LVH) today for financial support to Memorial’s employees following the devastation of Hurricane Katrina in August.LVH donated $10,000 to Memorial’s Employee Recovery Fund, set up in the aftermath of the storm to help the hospital’s workers through the financial difficulties of having their homes and personal property damaged or destroyed. David Estorge, president of the Memorial Hospital Development Foundation, told a gathering of LVH department managers he and others at Memorial “deeply appreciated” LVH’s generosity. “This came as a complete and absolute surprise,” Estorge said. We are extremely grateful for the support Lehigh Valley Hospital has provided to the entire staff at Memorial Hospital and felt the best way to say thank you was to do it in person.” Estorge said he hopes that the money will entice Memorial Hospital employees to remain in the Gulfport area and to continue working there as they try to rebuild their lives. He said more than 400 hospital staff were left homeless or displaced by Katrina and over 300 have gone elsewhere to work. But he added that the hospital “never shut down” and was able to meet the community’s health care needs through the dedication of its physicians, nurses and staff that spent nearly six full days at the hospital after Katrina passed. Estorge showed the LVH group photos to give them a better understanding of the challenge that continues to face the Gulfport area and the hospital, saying recovery “is going to be a marathon.” He said the hospital building survived the storm, but damages are estimated at $8-10 million. Louis Liebhaber, LVH’s chief operating officer, said the hospital and the entire healthcare community were distraught after seeing the storm’s impact and he contacted the VHA healthcare provider alliance to see what could be done. Memorial Hospital and LVH are both VHA members. Liebhaber said VHA pointed out Memorial Hospital’s need for financial support for its employees and LVH was pleased to be able to help. “Many on our staff wanted to know what they could do. I can’t think of a better way than for our hospital and our employees reaching out to Memorial and it’s employees because of our common focus everyday of caring for our communities.” A premier academic community hospital, Lehigh Valley Hospital and Health Network includes three hospital facilities – two in Allentown and one in Bethlehem, Pa. – and Lehigh Valley Health Services, providing home health, hospice, pharmaceutical and health management services. In 2005, US News & World Report named Lehigh Valley Hospital one of America’s Best Hospitals for the tenth straight year. LVHHN’s advanced regional resources include a Level I Trauma Center with added pediatric qualifications, regional Burn Center as well as kidney and pancreas transplant, perinatal/neonatal, cardiac, cancer care, and neurology and complex neurosurgery capabilities. LVHHN hospitals are designated national Magnet hospitals for excellence in nursing. LVH is one of Pennsylvania’s largest teaching hospitals and is a major teaching campus of Penn State's College of Medicine. This page last updated 2/12/08 04:08 PM
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