Gilroy
– A dream team of Gilroy’s best-known names gathered Thursday
night at Saint Louise Regional Hospital, in a new effort to keep
South County’s only hospital in the black.
Gilroy – A dream team of Gilroy’s best-known names gathered Thursday night at Saint Louise Regional Hospital, in a new effort to keep South County’s only hospital in the black.
Imploring Gilroy’s bigwigs to give, Dr. George Green said, “You are community pillars. You are successful. You are influential. You have the ability to help our community.”
Committee member Bill Reimal put a finer point on it. Holding up Saint Louise promotional pens, he kidded, “This pen is programmed to write only numbers and dollar signs.”
The event marks the start of Partners for Healthcare Excellence, a fundraising campaign aimed at South County’s wealthiest donors. This year, Saint Louise stayed afloat, but not by much, explained CEO Ted Fox. For-profit specialty centers have plucked the most profitable patients, leaving Saint Louise to provide for the uninsured and MediCal patients; unfunded state mandates have added to the strain. Meanwhile, South County’s population has exploded.
“I remember this sleepy little town with two stoplights … Boy, have we grown,” Green remarked. “I see no end in sight.”
Today, Saint Louise has more visits per bed than any other hospital in the county, said Fox, and the nonprofit estimates that it provides $600,000 in charity care, $3 million in unreimbursed MediCal costs, and $1.5 million in community outreach each year.
“Our charity care policy is what makes us unique,” said Michele Averill, director of the Saint Louise Regional Hospital Foundation. “Nobody’s turned away from our hospital, and you can’t say that for anybody else in the area.”
But, she added, it doesn’t make the hospital any money.
Green shared those worries with one high-profile patient: Don Christopher, of the garlic-growing giant Christopher Ranch.
“He said, ‘By the way, I’ve got to talk to you,’ ” Christopher recalled.
Nobody wants to hear that from a doctor – but Christopher listened. Green said, “I told [Don] this community needed help. He didn’t balk. He just said, ‘What can I do?’ ”
Two months later, Christopher had hatched a plan: Ask Gilroy’s well-off to donate $10,000 each, in a Robin-Hood effort to support the struggling hospital. Last fall, in a single Rotary meeting, Christopher snagged four donations, for a total of $40,000.
“I thought, ‘This will be easy!’ ” he said, grinning. “Well, it’s not that easy.”
To spur donations, Christopher mobilized Reimal, Fox, Green, garlic-growers George and Alice Chiala and cherry farmers Ralph and Linda Santos to ask friends and acquaintances. He also asked hospital staff for an itemized list of needed equipment, so that donors could choose what to buy.
“People don’t give to the [hospital] foundation as readily as they will to buy something,” Christopher said. Foundation Chair George Chiala Sr. guarantees that 100 percent of each donation will go to the equipment or service a donor selects. Donors will also get a taste of the limelight, in monthly Dispatch profiles of hospital donors.
Though the campaign targets “major donors,” said Averill, less affluent donors can team up to make a big-ticket donation, and can pay in installments, too.
“We are the safety net in the South County,” remarked Fox. But “like it or not, this is also a business, and there have been lots of challenges.”
