Former Bruins star invests in home-style care
Former Bruins star investsin home-style careThe family of former Bruins star Cam Neely has raised nearly $10 million for Tufts-New England Medical Center over the past decade, much of it to create a more homelike environment for patients at the Boston hospital. Today, the Neelys and hospital officials will cut the ribbon on a new center for stem cell and bone marrow donations featuring big windows, comfortable chairs and flat-screen televisions -- a far cry from the old, windowless center that Cam's brother, Scott, joked was "like a walk to your execution." The Cam Neely Foundation for Cancer Care, which Scott manages, has already begun fund-raising for a bone marrow transplant center for children that will include kitchens, showers and Murphy beds for parents who want to stay close by.
The Neelys have been tight with the medical center since the mid-1990s, when the family chose the hospital as the best place to pay tribute to their parents, both of whom died of cancer in their native Canada. Cam Neely now serves on the hospital's board, while Scott Neely is intimately involved with the design of Neely-funded projects, right down to selecting light-switch plates in the new Neely Cell Therapy and Collection Center.
"We were quite immediately impressed with their approach to patient care and family support," Scott Neely said. "And, quite frankly, this hospital is not a very well-known hospital . . . and we thought that would be more of an opportunity for this foundation to make more of an impact."
SCOTT ALLEN
Brigham's top doctor heads south
You will excuse the top doc at Brigham and Women's Hospital if you catch him whistling Dixie these days. Dr. Victor J. Dzau, physician-in-chief at the Brigham, is North Carolina-bound, ready to take the helm at Duke University Health System on July 1. As chancellor of health affairs, Dzau will be responsible for the medical school, the nursing school, three hospitals, and a network of physician practices. It's an unusual "all-under-one-roof" arrangement that proved especially inviting to Dzau, 57, who has spent 25 years at the Brigham and Harvard Medical School.
A renowned cardiovascular researcher, Dzau has spent all of his professional life in Boston, except for a six-year stint at Stanford University. An interim replacement for Dzau at the Brigham is expected to be named this week, a hospital spokeswoman said, and a search committee to find a permanent successor is being created.
STEPHEN SMITH
After hospital closures, expansion in Burlington
Officials at the Lahey Clinic in Burlington hope to break ground this fall for an 80-bed expansion, the cornerstone of a $135 million effort to relieve perhaps the state's worst hospital crowding problem. The 270-bed hospital is more than 90 percent full on most days and emergency patients quite often are diverted elsewhere, the legacy of a wave of hospital closures northwest of Boston in the 1990s. Dr. David M. Barrett, Lahey's chief executive, stressed that the hospital still needs town permits for the expansion. The state has OK'd the plan, and Barrett said fund-raising is on track, too, with $75 million in cash or pledges so far. Now, Lahey officials are bracing for four to six years of construction.
Lahey administrators should also brace for a little envy from their peers who want to expand but can't afford it. One-third of Massachusetts hospital beds were eliminated over the past 15 years, but the need for them is rebounding as baby boomers age. The state Department of Public Health predicts a statewide shortage of hospital beds by 2012 if nothing is done.
"Around every board table, they are considering this bed issue right now," Barrett said. "But, with the financial conditions of hospitals, without a lot of profit being shown, [expansion] is not realistic."
SCOTT ALLEN
Battle over nursing shortage heats up
More than 1,000 nurses, former patients and consumer activists are expected to descend on the State House today to press for passage of a bill requiring minimum nurse-staffing levels at the state's hospitals. Among the demonstrators will be people with stories about the severe nursing shortage -- such as a nurse practitioner who said he had to do his own suctioning when he was being treated for a collapsed lung.The demonstrators want the House Ways and Means Committee to allow a vote this week on a bill requiring hospitals to maintain minimum ratios of nurses to patients on every shift, a measure hospitals strongly oppose.
SCOTT ALLEN
