Bristol Hospital has plans to completely renovate the existing Emergency Center, and kicked off their fundraising efforts by hosting “Operation ERgency,” on Thursday, Sept. 6.
“Operation ERgency,” is an employee fundraising campaign, according to a press release. The event boasted four trucks and a dunk tank, where hospital employees paid for a chance to dunk hospital and community leaders.
Mary Lynn Gagnon, executive director of the development foundation, said the hospital is hoping to raise a total “between $5.5 million and $6 million” for the emergency center.
“We are kicking off a campaign to raise money for the renovation and expansion of the emergency center, and we’re asking all our employees to donate money, either a one-time gift or a payroll deduction,” said Gagnon. “We are trying to raise, with just our employees, $350,000, and we’re hoping our physicians match that at $350,000.”
The dunk tank lineup consisted of Dr. Craig Mittleman, chairman of the emergency room; Kurt Barwis, president and CEO of the hospital; Ed Henry, executive director of the Bristol Hospital MultiSpecialty Group; Bristol Police Chief Brian Gould; Ric Braam, Bristol Hospital chief financial officer; and, Dr. Andrew Lim, a Bristol Hospital emergency center physician.
"We have a great partnership with the Bristol Hospital, and they reached out and asked if I would volunteer my time to take a dip in the drink, so I said, ‘Absolutely, I’d love to come out and support the staff here,’” said Brian Gould, Bristol police chief.
The first dunk of the day, Mittleman, was accomplished by hospice nurse, Sophie Whitlock, who said the day was “awesome, totally awesome.”
“I love all the people here and, especially Dr. Mittleman, and I wanted to see him go swimming,” said Whitlock.
“We hope to start on the locked behavioral healthcare part of the unit probably in January, and hopefully by next spring or fall we’ll have that part done,” said Barwis. “The rest of the project is being developed and we’ve had pretty good participation thus far from outside folks who have a really incredible heart and really care about this place, and have already made contributions so we’re really excited.”
Mittleman described “Operation ERgency” as “very much in the spirit of our hospital, which is fun and collegial.”
Gagnon, who said “Operation ERgency” is the internal effort, said the premise of the internal campaign was to get “our entire medical staff and employees excited about a new emergency center.”
“We want everybody, everyone of the employees, to feel like this is their emergency center. This should be something that they take pride in, and this is their hospital,” said Gagnon.