MONROE, La. (KNOE) – Over the last decade, the St. Francis Foundation has been instrumental in elevating care at St. Francis Medical Center in Monroe.
“We know that some folks are going to occasionally need to go outside of the area for care but we want to provide as much of that care as possible with a high degree of quality here,” says Dr. Thomas Gullatt, CEO of St. Francis.
Since its inception ten years ago, the foundation has raised $5 million dollars for the hospital. Funds from the St. Francis Foundation’s 2 Cars 2 Winners Raffle go straight toward Women’s, Children’s, and Critical Care services.
“The foundation has helped us to get these state-of-the-art services in our area, which has helped us to recruit physicians into this area, we just recently hired three new pulmonary critical care physicians to help manage and run our ICU,” explains Dr. John Bruchhaus, Chief Medical Officer and Pulmonary Disease and Critical Care Management Physician.
In the last few years, the hospital used money from the 2 Cars 2 Winners raffle to renovate and update the Pediatric Intensive Care Unit (PICU). They also added 10 new Intensive Care Unit beds right before the pandemic, which allowed doctors to take care of more people.
“The foundation has been critical in helping us to get a helipad on top of our emergency room and we’re in the process of getting accreditation for a Level III Trauma Center. This provides care for trauma in a nine-parish region around Monroe,” says Dr. John Bruchhaus.
St. Francis has the region’s only Level III Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU) and Level II PICU.
“The St. Francis Foundation has been a blessing for us in Patient Care Services […] you can see OmniBeds that cost a lot of money that take care of little teeny babies,” explains Kayla Johnson, the Vice President of Patient Care Services at the hospital. “Our transport unit that nurses go out on transport to pick up these babies they’ve purchased that for us, our 3D mammography machine at Kitty Degree, our biopsy table, I could go on and on.”
With many nearby hospitals limiting their services, St. Francis is seeing more babies born than ever before.
“We delivered 207 last month, we’re delivering 210 this month here at St. Francis so without our fetal monitoring system that the foundation purchased we wouldn’t be able to have that many beds that were monitored,” says Johnson. […] “If you were not able to come to St. Francis and get that critical care attention with a very small premie baby, and that premie had to be taken 120 miles down the road one way or the other, that baby could not survive. So, what it’s affording is life.”
Over the last ten years, the St. Francis Foundation has raised over $5 million dollars for tech advancements.
It’s not just caring for the patients of today, but also looking to the future.
“Now with our graduate medical education program and residency program, which trains 15 new physicians yearly, it allows us to recruit to this area and keep people in our area.”
And when you look to the future, CEO Dr. Thomas Gullatt says the foundation will be there to help, especially as work begins to renovate the NICU.
When you buy a 2 Cars 2 Winners raffle ticket, you’re helping expound on all of the services we just mentioned. A $50 ticket not only helps improve our community healthcare but you’re entered for the chance to win a 2023 Nissan Titan Pro-4X or 2023 Toyota 4Runner SR5 Premium.
You can buy a ticket online here or at Ouachita Valley Federal Credit Union locations, Creed & Creed, Sparks Nissan, Van-Trow Toyota, the St. Francis Medical Center Gift Shop, or the St. Francis Community Health Center.
If you buy a ticket between October 9 and 13 at noon, you’ll be entered for a chance to win an extra $2,500 in the Vantage Last Chance Cash Blast.
Ticket sales close on October 18 at midnight, and the drawing will happen live on KNOE at 6 p.m. on October 24.
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