RIGHT NOW you can have your gift to the Cardiothoracic Equipment fund doubled!! A generous donor has pledged up to $500,000 to help us with two pressing needs.
1. Cardiac catheterization laboratory. We must raise the funds to purchase our brand new General Electric (GE) cath lab. The heart of a cath lab is a very large image intensifier. This is essentially a big Xray unit that allows us in real time to watch what we are doing with catheters and wires and other tools inside the blood vessels of the heart, the brain, the legs, and just about anywhere else blood flows! We negotiated with GE and signed a contract with them in December for $1 million (down from $1.9 million!). This is a state-of-the-art biplane unit, which will be the first of its kind GE will have placed in the region. The biplane feature essentially allows us to see two separate views simultaneously, and is especially helpful for working on the hearts of small children and on the brain in neurosurgery patients. We placed an initial down-payment of $100,000 in December in faith that the Lord would provide the rest of the funds. 2. Start-up costs. As you can imagine, we have a lot of work to do before we actually open the doors to see patients in September of this year. The construction will be completed on February 29, but then we have to begin installing all of the equipment. Perhaps even more importantly, we must soon hire key individuals to allow us to begin building up the team of 250 employees who will be required to get started. Eventually, after several years, we anticipate employing around 1,000 people when all phases of the facility are up and running. We have to get people in place well before we will see any funds coming in from the National Health Insurance Fund to pay for the cost of patient procedures. Thank you! These other funds are ongoing needs as well, but the matching gift applies specifically for the needs mentioned above. |