Double Donations get the Ball Rolling on Children’s Hospital Expansion
Gifts from the Kalispell Rotary Club and Michael Kozlowski on behalf of Rita Fitzsimmons will fund a children's infusion center at Logan Health
By Zoë Buhrmaster
A recent donation to Logan Health Children’s hospital in Kalispell is solidifying plans for a consolidated center for children undergoing cancer treatment.
Michael Kozlowski donated $500,000 to the center on behalf of his mother, Rita Fitzsimmons, a graphic designer and high-risk multiple myeloma patient who has received treatment at Logan Health’s Infusion Center over the past three years. The gift spurred an additional $105,670 contribution from Fitzsimmons’ fellow Kalispell Rotary Club members.
While there for treatment, Fitzsimmons noticed children of varying ages who all shared the same oncology and hematology spaces with her and other adults.
“The nurses and staff do everything they can to make patients comfortable, but my heart always goes out to the little ones—there’s not much about cancer therapy that’s fun,” she said in a press release.
With his mother in mind, Kozlowski reached out to Logan Health for a way to contribute. In doing so he inadvertently discovered the hospital’s long-term plans to further develop the women’s and children’s services building.
Currently, services are relegated to the first floor of the women’s and children’s tower, which opened in 2019 and includes a neonatal intensive care unit, pediatric intensive care unit and pediatric hospital. The limited space means that any other relevant services are housed in other buildings, up to two blocks away for some outpatient services, said Dr. Courtney Paterson, the physician executive for women’s and children’s services.
She said that since the first floor opened, the plan has been to incorporate all women’s and children’s services under the same roof using the second and third floors.
“It’s a much better experience to be able to come to one location and have all those services come to them, rather than having to go to multiple locations on the same day,” Paterson said. “That was the innovative dream that Rita and Michael and the Rotary Club heard, was how important that would be for our community, and their desires to do something meaningful married up with our vision for care beautifully.”
The expansion will likely include services such as child life therapy, a dietician and a pharmacist. Michael Barth, the president of the Logan Health Foundation, said that they are currently analyzing the details and a final price tag to determine how much is left to raise.
“A lot of this is figuring out the right mix,” Barth said. “What are the services we can provide that will best serve our patients, that will bring our care teams together so that they’re gaining the benefit of being physically close together within that space.”
For now, they know it will at least feature a dedicated space for children in need of cancer infusion treatments, the Rita Fitzsimmons Pediatric Infusion Center.
“We now have the impetus and the seed money to be able to launch that larger vision, to be able to finish out the second and third floor,” she said. “Our medical staff and physicians and ATPs [assistive technology professionals] are really thrilled to be able to look to a future where we can all operate under one roof, not only to make it easier for patients, but to make it easier for medical staff to support them.”