Thursday, December 17, 2009
Green Bay, December 17, 2009 – St. Vincent Hospital is the recipient of a $50,000 grant from the Wisconsin Public Service Foundation to improve technology and lighting in the Newborn Intensive Care Unit of the hospital.
There will be a presentation of the check on Friday, December 18 at 11:15 a.m. in the St. Vincent Hospital Newborn Intensive Care Unit. All news media are invited to cover the presentation.
The Newborn Intensive Care Unit (NICU) is a place where success is measured in inches and ounces. This generous grant, along with other community gifts, will allow St. Vincent Hospital to remodel and upgrade the environment where babies are still developing vital organs, sensory systems and feeding abilities; it will make an enormous difference in their young lives.
Using results from the latest neonatal research, St. Vincent Hospital is planning a number of changes in the NICU to improve the babies’ surroundings such as a new floor and wall coverings that better absorb sound. A quiet atmosphere helps infants get much-needed sleep and aids in development of their auditory systems. Window coverings will be added to some of the windows and lighting will be changed to make it darker, which is easier on the babies’ developing eyes. The new lighting funded by this grant will be more energy efficient and help to reduce future operating costs of the NICU.
St. Vincent Hospital was founded in 1888 by the Hospital Sisters of the Third Order of St. Francis in Springfield, Illinois. St. Vincent maintains those ties today as one of 13 hospitals in the Midwest affiliated with Hospital Sisters Health System. Its mission of healing and philosophy of caring revolve around concern for treating the whole individual – spiritually and emotionally as well as physically.