February 4, 2019
For More Information Contact
Risk Communications Manager Lorrie Andrew-Spear, 703-530-2627
(FREDERICKSBURG, Va.)— In January 2019, the Joe and Mary Wilson Community Benefit Fund of the Mary Washington Hospital Foundation awarded the Rappahannock Area Health District a $100,000 grant for its Complicated Obstetrical and High-Risk Maternity Care Program.
RAHD operates a large maternity program that provides outpatient prenatal care primarily to uninsured or underinsured pregnant women from all five of RAHD’s localities (city of Fredericksburg and the counties of Caroline, King George, Spotsylvania and Stafford). Each year, several hundred new patients are seen. Many have medical, obstetrical or other conditions that make their pregnancies more complex or high-risk. The grant funding allows these patients to receive intensive case management that helps reduce infant and maternal fatalities. It also reduces preventable emergency department visits and hospitalizations, premature births and low birth weight births.
“We appreciate this grant award from the Joe and Mary Wilson Community Benefit Fund of the Mary Washington Hospital Foundation,” said RAHD Health Director Brooke Rossheim, M.D., M.P.H. “This will help support RAHD’s Maternity Program. The program, which began in 2009, treats a large number of high-risk patients, and this funding helps ensure these patients receive the care they need. For years, the Mary Washington Hospital Foundation and Mary Washington Hospital have been dedicated partners with the Rappahannock Area Health District to serve patients in need of these services in our community.”
The grant award provides funding for the obstetrical clinicians who staff the maternity programs that serve residents of the city of Fredericksburg and Spotsylvania, Stafford, King George and Caroline counties.
For more information about the many programs and services that the RAHD offers in the community, visit www.vdh.virginia.gov/rappahannock/.