Mount Carmel Foundation receives grant

Wednesday, August 17, 2011
Members of the Rita J. Bicknell Health Fund present a $6,000 grant to the Mount Carmel Foundation. Pictured left to right: Jane Crain (Rita J. Bicknell Health Fund) Kimberly Clark (Rita J. Bicknell Health Fund), Duane Dreiling (Mount Carmel Foundation Executive Director), Kyndra Burgess (Rita J. Bicknell Health Fund), Barbara Rhodes (Rita J. Bicknell Health Fund), Sharon Dean (Rita J. Bicknell Health Fund), Rita Bicknell (Rita J. Bicknell Health Fund), Kim Muff (Mount Carmel Foundation), Diane Bicknell (Rita J. Bicknell Health Fund), Vicki Dennett (Rita J. Bicknell Health Fund), Janelle Wade (Director of Via Christi Hospital Women's Services), Randy Cason (President and CEO of Via Christi Hospital), Jill Ward (Rita J. Bicknell Health Fund).

PITTSBURG -- The Mount Carmel Foundation announced that it is the recipient of a $6,000 grant from the Rita J. Bicknell Women's Health Fund hosted by the Community Foundation of Southeast Kansas. The grant will benefit the Women's Services Project currently under construction at Via Christi Hospital. The Mount Carmel Foundation has pledged to raise more than $1 million for the Women's Services Project.

"The Mount Carmel Foundation is extremely thankful to the Rita J. Bicknell Women's Health Fund for the $6,000 grant to assist in the purchase of a fetal monitoring system," Mount Carmel Executive Director Duane Dreiling said in a news release. "Because of this gift, the new Via Christi Women's Center will be able to provide an advanced level of supervision to mothers and babies during labor and delivery."

This money specifically goes toward a fetal monitoring system, a key technological upgrade that is part of the Women's Services Project. The fetal monitor supports connection to a central documentation system and provides visual and audible indications of synchronous fetal and/or maternal heart rate and other vital signs.

Additional monitor screens will be placed at the nurse's station, physician lounge, clinician break room, nursery, and postpartum room.

"We are excited that the Women's Center has become a priority at Via Christi Hospital," Rita Bicknell, member of the Women's Health Fund, said. "Many of our own members have had children and grandchildren born here. We're happy to be a part of this project and the central fetal monitoring system, as it will serve the women of our region for years to come."

"The foundation shares the Rita J. Bicknell Women's Health Fund vision to ensure quality health care for women of Southeast Kansas," Dreiling said.

The hospital opened its current women's services area in 1971 on a wing of the second floor of the hospital. Today, the entire third floor is being renovated to become the new home of Via Christi Hospital Women's Services.

The renovation project is slated to be complete in spring of 2012. Since 2004, the Via Christi Hospital nursery has seen a 26 percent increase in births.