Your Gift Makes a Difference
Imagine you are a cancer physician. You just learned about a brand-new treatment that can deliver more precise radiation treatment and save more lives. Then you learn you have to wait two years to get that new machine, because the hospital you work in has a leaky roof, or a faulty boiler, and the money needs to be spent on that first.
Now imagine the frustration of telling your patient, and numerous patients thereafter, that they must wait for that care, or that they must travel outside the area to get the care they need. The reality is, this scene plays out at hospitals nationwide, including in Pennsylvania, where one in every four hospitals lost money last year.
Thankfully, it is not happening here. LVHHN is financially strong, allowing the hospital to further the vision set forth nearly 40 years ago by Leonard Parker Pool. He saw the need for a superior, regional hospital, so people in and around the Lehigh Valley would not have to leave the area to get the best health care.
His dream is being realized through services unique to the Lehigh Valley—the region’s only Burn Center, Transplant Center performing kidney and pancreas transplants, and Level I Trauma Center with additional qualifications in pediatric trauma, meaning first-rate emergency care for all. In pediatric care, LVHHN hosts the region’s only pediatric intensive care unit for critically ill children, the highest level neonatal intensive care unit for premature babies, and many pediatric specialists not found elsewhere.
Your generosity helps us fulfill the hospital’s mission. Your gifts help us heal, comfort and care for everyone in our community by bringing these services here, so you or your loved ones don’t have to leave the area for care. Your gifts also help support our research programs, which enable us to discover the newest treatments, and our education programs, which teach tomorrow’s doctors and keeps them in the Lehigh Valley.
You may have recently read that LVHHN achieved a $75.9 million margin in the most recent fiscal year. We invest all of that money back into our community with expanded facilities like our growing LVH—Cedar Crest and newly expanded LVH—Muhlenberg. This gives us the necessary space to bring quality programs and lifesaving technology to our region. We also invested $84.1 million last year in free care and community service, including care for the uninsured and underinsured, free classes, education, screenings, health fairs and thousands of community flu vaccines.
Your gifts play just as vital a role now as ever. Recently, our hospital administrators met with leading physicians and clinical experts to forecast our community’s future health care needs, and right now we can only provide funding for about two-thirds of the requests. Even with our financial strength, it will be impossible to provide all the lifesaving technologies you or your loved one may need without your direct support.
The Lehigh Valley is the third fastest growing region in the entire Northeast. From 2000 to 2004, our region added 30,000 people, and as our population grows, so too does the need for quality health care. To keep fulfilling Leonard Pool’s dream and growing our health care services to meet our community’s needs, your help is vital. Thank you for all you’ve done and continue to do on behalf of the people in the Lehigh Valley!
Gratefully,
Chuck Lewis
Senior Vice President, Development
