Stoico/FIRSTFED Charitable Foundation donates $1.1M for maternity care at St. Luke’s

SOUTHCOAST HEALTH announced Tuesday that its Campaign for Southcoast Health has received a $1.1 million donation for maternity care from the Robert F. Stoico/FIRSTFED Charitable Foundation.
SOUTHCOAST HEALTH announced Tuesday that its Campaign for Southcoast Health has received a $1.1 million donation for maternity care from the Robert F. Stoico/FIRSTFED Charitable Foundation.

(Updated 4 p.m.)
NEW BEDFORD – Southcoast Health announced Tuesday that its Campaign for Southcoast Health has received a $1.1 million donation for maternity care from the Robert F. Stoico/FIRSTFED Charitable Foundation.

The $1.1 million will be allocated as follows: $1 million to the maternity center at St. Luke’s Hospital in New Bedford, and $100,000 to care for drug-addicted newborns.

The nonprofit health care system’s $25 million capital campaign is the largest in its history.

Launched in October 2014, the five-year campaign has raised approximately $15 million to date, Peter Cohenno, Southcoast Health spokesperson, told Providence Business News. The campaign is raising funds to support major capital initiatives. In addition to St. Luke’s Maternity Center renovations, the campaign is raising funds to establish the Lash Heart and Vascular Center at Charlton Memorial Hospital in Fall River and to expand the emergency department at Tobey Hospital in Wareham, he said.

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Southcoast Health is the only provider of maternity services in the South Coast region. At Southcoast Health’s three acute-care hospitals – St. Luke’s, Charlton Memorial in Fall River and Tobey in Wareham – nearly 3,500 babies are delivered every year in total; of those, 1,400 births occur at St. Luke’s.

“Health care is extremely important to me and my foundation,” Bob Stoico said in the statement.

After retiring from FIRSTFED America Bancorp Inc. as its chairman, president and CEO, Stoico established the charitable foundation, which has given and/or pledged almost $25 million to organizations in Rhode Island and Southeastern Massachusetts since 1988, according to a press release from Southcoast about the donation.

Stoico continued, “By supporting excellent maternity care at St. Luke’s, we are helping to ensure the health and well-being of families. That is a vital service for the community.”

“We are incredibly grateful to the Stoico/FIRSTFED Charitable Foundation for this extremely generous donation, which benefits moms, newborns and families,” Keith A. Hovan, Southcoast Health president & CEO, said. “[We] rely on the generosity of so many within our community to support vital programs and services. This substantial contribution has helped us to completely renovate our maternity department at St. Luke’s, where families in greater New Bedford can now celebrate the birth of a child in a brand new, state-of-the-art unit that offers privacy and comfort.”

Completed in the summer of 2015, the new, state-of-the-art unit includes 19 post-partum rooms, a Level II nursery, five dedicated labor and delivery rooms, three dedicated triage/labor rooms and two C-section rooms. Funds for this $13.5 million renovation were borrowed from the hospital system’s capital budget, and the Stoico/FIRSTFED Charitable Foundation donation helped to replenish the budget, Cohenno said.

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