Wegmans donates $500K to Thompson Health

The F.F. Thompson Foundation has received a $500,000 gift from the Wegmans Family Foundation. The gift will help build an expanded intensive care unit (ICU) and pulmonary medicine clinic set to open at UR Medicine Thompson Hospital in the spring of 2020.

“Thompson Health is so grateful to the Wegmans Family Foundation for this latest gift, which continues a long series of generous support by the Wegman family for our local health system.  We are very proud to be able to partner with them and our other community supporters to bring forward this latest innovation in health care,” said Thompson Health President and CEO Michael F. Stapleton, Jr.

Designed by LaBella Associates, the ICU/pulmonary medicine expansion is being erected by The Pike Company, Inc. On-site work began in late January, and excavation began in April. Mechanical, electrical and plumbing coordination is complete with the help of United PLumbing Heating Air & Electric, with an elevator shaft already erected and steel framing work under way.

According to Stapleton, the project is on track and on budget. It involves growing from the current seven ICU beds to 12 ICU beds, enabling Thompson to have full-time coverage from physicians specially trained in the care and management of critical care patients. In addition, the hospital will send fewer patients to Rochester due to limited capacity, keeping an additional 250 to 330 critically ill patients close to home annually.

The pulmonary clinic will see patients suffering from chronic lung conditions such as asthma, emphysema, congestive obstructive pulmonary disorder (COPD) and other diseases. It will be approximately triple the size of the current pulmonary clinic, enabling Thompson to see more patients than current space allows and shortening appointment wait times.

Thanks to the recent gift from the Wegmans Family Foundation, Thompson has now raised approximately $11.1 million of the $12 million needed for the expansion and renovation.