It’s been nearly three years since The Brooklyn Hospital Center was able to host its annual Founders Ball in-person, and there was a lot to celebrate when hospital leadership and honorees gathered at the Brooklyn Museum on May 23.
The annual fundraising event raises up to $1 million for the hospital each year, and the money raised goes right back to making continued technological and care advancements at the Fort Greene hospital. This year’s donations are expected to be used to double the size and capacity of the hospital’s Cardiac Catheterization Lab, part of their acclaimed cardiac care unit.
With champagne glasses and a beautifully-decorated venue, the hospital was also celebrating the accomplishments of the last two years. The pandemic has been a strain on all local hospitals, including TBHC, but the medical center has made enormous progress in expanding and modernizing their medical facilities. Earlier this year, the hospital received $9.2 million in federal funding to finish a long-needed upgrade and expansion of their emergency department, which joins a brand-new location and dialysis technology for the award-winning dialysis center and a the Physicians Pavilion, a shiny, brand-new home for the hospital’s specialty practices.
Four accomplished doctors and TBHC partners were honored with awards. Dan Chung, CEO at investment firm Alger, was given the Brooklyn Without Borders medal alongside his colleagues at Alger. In December 2020, Chung donated $400,000 to pay off the outstanding student debt of the hospital’s nurse managers and provided a summer-long stress management program for nurses as they dealt with the pandemic’s most difficult days.
Carlos P. Naudon, President and CEO of Ponce Bank and a former chairman of TBHC was named the Founders Medalist, while two physicians — Dr. Ahmar Butt and Dr. Louisdon Pierre — were awarded Walter E. Reed medals for their work in medicine both within the walls of the hospital and elsewhere.
The more than century-old hospital is one of a small number of independent hospitals still operating in Brooklyn, and a large number of its patients are low-income and insured by Medicare and Medicaid. In addition to overcoming financial struggles made worse by the pandemic and celebrating the hospital’s new facilities, TBHC was the only hospital in Brooklyn to raise its Leapfrog Hospital Safety Grade this spring, earning a “B” from the independent hospital-safety organization. Leapfrog specifically commended the hospital’s infection control, leadership, and qualified nurses.
Last month, Brooklyn Paper’s parent company Schneps Media honored TBCH CEO Gary Terrinoni as a “Healthcare Hero.”
