$100 Million to US Children's Hospital
8 October 2007 at 4:04 pm
A US philanthropist, Ann Lurie, has pledged $100 million to help fund a new facility planned for Children’s Memorial Hospital in Chicago, making the donation the largest gift given by an individual to a children’s hospital in the United States.
The $100 million gift, the largest charitable investment received in the hospital’s 125-year history, will be used to help create the new hospital and to enhance its paediatric research initiatives.
Ann Lurie has outlined her reasoning for the huge donation. She says medicine is evolving so rapidly – to capture some of the value of new innovations and technology, Children’s Memorial requires an updated clinical facility with space for upgraded equipment and services.
Lurie says it is her hope that this gift will help Children’s Memorial Hospital leverage its strengths and combine its expertise with its affiliated entities to provide state-of-the-art care for infants and children in Chicago.
Subject to government approval work is scheduled for the spring of 2008 and the new hospital is scheduled to open in 2012.
Lurie lives in Chicago where she is president of Lurie Investments, president and treasurer of the Ann and Robert H. Lurie Foundation and president of Africa Infectious Disease Village Clinics, Inc., a U.S.-based charity.
Following the death of her husband Robert H. Lurie in 1990, Ann Lurie devoted herself to raising their six children, while distinguishing herself as a committed and knowledgeable benefactor to a number of important causes in healthcare, education, social services and the arts.
Lurie, who was once a critical care nurse at Children’s Memorial, says that her personal experiences as both an employee and as a parent of six children — several of whom were treated at Children’s Memorial — influenced her decision to make the gift.
When the new hospital opens in 2012, it will be called Ann & Robert H. Lurie Children’s Hospital of Chicago in recognition of the gift.
