A grateful cancer patient saw a life-threatening diagnosis turn into a positive experience with an excellent outcome at Concord Hospital’s Payson Center for Cancer Care. In gratitude for the life-saving, compassionate care he received in his own community, the patient presented a donation of $50,000 to help the center obtain equipment to assure state-of-the-art care for people with cancer.
“My family and I are most grateful for the Hospital’s excellent physicians and all their staff who helped us during my battle with cancer,” the patient said.
As it begins its second decade, Payson Center for Cancer Care will continue its commitment as a comprehensive community cancer center.
Combining the latest medical technologies and clinical care with personalized supportive services through the HOPE Resource Center, the Payson Center provides in excess of 10,000 radiation treatments annually, serving thousands of people with cancer and their families.
A second gift will benefit the Frail Elder House Call Program, which provides care to home-bound geriatric patients, while training a new generation of doctors to serve the growing elderly population. The daughter of long-time Concord residents Lillian and James Kennedy made the $25,000 donation to establish a permanent fund in their names to honor her parents and serve the hospital that had served them and this community. Mrs. Kennedy was a faithful volunteer at the hospital.
Established in 1998, the Frail Elder House Call Program is part of the New Hampshire Dartmouth Family Medicine Residency. Through the program, medical residents, under the supervision of program faculty, visit with assigned patients at their homes every other month for two years – functioning as the patients’ primary care physicians. In addition to providing important training to doctors, patients receive regular, coordinated care designed to improve or better manage their conditions and reduce emergency department visits, hospitalizations and duplication of services.
“Family Medicine residents learn a lot about geriatric primary care in the Frail Elder Program, and the gift from the Kennedy family allows us to continue our important educational work into the future,” said Dr. B.J. Entwisle, who developed the program. “The program and its philanthropic support are good for Concord, and indeed, our whole state.”
“Both of these gifts come from a place of caring for others and gratitude to Concord Hospital, the organization whose very mission is to care for others,” said Pamela Puleo, vice president of community affairs of Concord Hospital and executive director of Concord Hospital Trust.
