Stepping Up When Needed

by David Smale

Kansas City prides itself on its benevolent spirit. Not-for-profit organizations know that Kansas Citians give from the heart. Recently, Meara, King & Co. and Ingram’s Magazine partnered together to raise nearly $100,000 for the relief effort for Hurricane Katrina, simply by way of an e-mail outreach effort.

But there’s an old expression about “putting wheels under your prayers.” Children’s Mercy Hospital has done exactly that. Oh, the hospital has contributed financially to the relief effort, but its above-and-beyond response has made that contribution go much farther.

The day after the hurricane blew through New Orleans and effectively shut down the city, Children’s Mercy President/CEO Rand O’Donnell picked up the phone and called his long-time friend Steve Worley, CEO of Children’s Hospital of New Orleans. His message was simple: “Is there anything we can do to help?” The response was not immediate, but the following morning, O’Donnell got a call.

The situation had gotten steadily worse. There were looters trying to break into the hospital. There was no water or electricity. Food was running out. It was not a safe situation. So O’Donnell quickly mobilized a transport staff, which included nurses and respiratory therapists, and they traveled to New Orleans.

There were more than a few hurdles to clear, most notably the fact that the New Orleans airport had no lights or electricity. Children’s Mercy also does not have a plane big enough to transport the children and their families.

O’Donnell called Senator Kit Bond, who arranged for the Missouri Air National Guard to provide two C-130s to redirect from Gulfport, Miss., to New Orleans to transport the 24 patients and their families. Once the planes—basically big, empty shells—arrived, the transport team converted them to medical planes and waited for the patients to arrive.

The 24 children, with ailments ranging from cancer to kidney diseases requiring dialysis to long-term chronic diseases like cystic fibrosis to asthma, arrived in the cars of the hospital staff, who had no other way to transport them to the otherwise-closed airport. There was less than an hour to get them loaded and secured before darkness set in and the airport would be completely closed.

They got it done and the planes arrived at the Charles Wheeler Downtown Airport in the early morning hours of September 1. Ambulances from Children’s Mercy were joined by ambulances from MAST, Liberty and Claycomo to transport the patients and their families to Children’s Mercy.

O’Donnell came up with the idea, but he is thankful that his staff picked it up and ran with it. “I am so proud of the entire staff of Children’s Mercy Hospitals and Clinics, who all provided extraordinary effort to carry out to perfection the largest single pediatric medical transport in history,” he said. “I wish our entire community could have watched in awe as I did in the wee hours of the morning as the ambulances lovingly delivered these children to our hospital. There were tears mixed with the smiles of the children and their parents as they immediately felt like they were at home here.”

O’Donnell said the culture at Children’s Mercy gave him the latitude to offer the hospital’s services. “I was able to act because I knew I had the support of our staff and the board that I am responsible to. We did not have a policy for how to assist another major metropolitan area that was subjected to a major natural disaster. We just helped because we were needed. We could do it, so we did.”

Children’s Mercy has done all of this at its own expense. If the patients’ insurance happens to pay part of the bill, great. But if not, it’s not an issue. “We’re going to do what’s right for these kids and their families. We’ll worry about the money later,” said Jennifer Benz, media relations manager at Children’s Mercy. “It fits our mission since the hospital opened more than 100 years ago. That is, ‘We will never turn a child away, regardless of their inability to pay.’”

Benz says that the hospital should not be singled out over the countless other individuals and agencies—like Angel Flight, which has airlifted hundereds of people from the flooded area—that have helped in the process. “Our effort is unique, but there are other hospitals that have accepted patients as well. Everybody is stepping up in their own way. We have a bottom line that we have to meet, but that’s where, thankfully, we can turn to private and corporate donations.”

Editor’s note: Individuals or companies wanting to donate to Children’s Mercy’s effort may go to www.childrens-mercy.org and click on the “Update: New Orleans’ Children” link. Those wanting to send a check to Children’s Mercy should send it c/o Resource Development, and note that it is for the “Family Support Fund.”