GRANT TO HELP FUND MATERNITY PROGRAM

January 15, 2020

Media Contact: Risk Communications Manager Lorrie Andrew-Spear, Lorrie.Andrew-Spear@vdh.virginia.gov

Joe and Mary Wilson Community Benefit Fund of the Mary Washington
Hospital Foundation Awards $100,000 Grant to the Rappahannock Area Health District

(Fredericksburg, Va.) In January 2020, the Joe and Mary Wilson Community Benefit Fund of the Mary Washington Hospital Foundation awarded the Rappahannock Area Health District (RAHD) 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 to hundreds of 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). Many of these patients have medical, obstetrical or other conditions that make their pregnancies more complex or high-risk. The grant funding helps to provide more intensive case management to reduce infant and maternal fatalities, preventable emergency department visits and hospitalizations, premature births and low birth weight births.

According to RAHD Health Director Dr. Brooke Rossheim, “We are quite appreciative of this grant award from the Joe and Mary Wilson Community Benefit Fund of the Mary Washington Hospital Foundation. 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 women receive the care they need. For years, the Mary Washington Hospital Foundation and Mary Washington Healthcare have been dedicated partners with the Rappahannock Area Health District to serve patients in need of these services.”

The grant award provides funding for the obstetrical clinicians who staff the Maternity Program that serves residents of the City of Fredericksburg and Spotsylvania, Stafford, King George and Caroline Counties.

For more information about the many programs the health district offers, visit www.vdh.virginia.gov/rappahannock/.