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Client: West County Health Care Foundation
Dear Friends of Palm Drive Hospital: As 2001 draws to a close, I am reminded of how well the opening lines from Charles Dickens’ novel, A Tale of Two Cities describes this year. Surely “it was the best of times, it was the worst of times.” In all sorts of ways, each of us has been forever changed by the tragedies of September 11th. Personally, I have been deeply affected, as have all the medical personnel I know. Loss of innocent life goes against everything we’ve spent our lives trying to prevent. How do we collectively heal in the wake of such overwhelming destruction? I humbly submit that each of us look for redemption by giving thanks for all that is good and constant in our lives. I will begin by thanking the West County community for giving us new hope for the future of our greatest healthcare resource, our treasured community hospital. Your support in the past several years has allowed us to establish a health care district, and more recently, to save our emergency room. While so many other hospitals in the Bay Area have closed, your support has enabled us to offer the West County something practically unheard of in today’s healthcare climate--60 years of continuous care. Your financial contributions to Palm Drive Hospital have helped us in the past. We ask that once again you give generously to the hospital so that our future remains bright. Eleanor Roosevelt once said that, “the future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams.” My dream for Palm Drive Hospital is that it continues for the next 60 years to operate as a health care facility always open and constantly reinventing itself for the betterment of the community it serves. But rather than sound like a man somehow ungrateful for how far we have already come, I will tell you of some of the many things we have already accomplished. • We have several new physicians on our staff--bright, enthusiastic and involved in the community--who sincerely believe in Palm Drive’s viability as a community hospital. • With the nationwide nursing shortage, we are sincerely grateful to have a caring, hardworking, highly competent staff of nurses who are loyal to our hospital and to the patients they serve. • We are blessed to have a medical staff that consists of doctors, nurses and administrative personnel whose unwavering dedication and support of this hospital is nothing short of miraculous. Without them, we simply could not go on. • We have a community that is like no other. Where else on earth would a community so vigorously support their local hospital? Thanks to your continued support, our Emergency Room will remain open 24/7/365, saving hundreds of lives in the years to come. Thanks to great strides in medical technology and the sciences, 60 is no longer considered old—unless you’re a hospital. Your donations have kept the doors open, paid salaries, covered supplies, and dealt with the myriad everyday necessities of running a hospital. We ask that you continue your support throughout the coming year. Over the past year, your donations have allowed us to do what we do best—care for our patients. We have helped them to live healthier lives, but equally as important, ensured that those in our care whose time had come, were allowed to die with dignity. Together, we have attempted to be something as a community that is greater than what any of us are individually. And even as we have struggled over the past years to ensure that our hospital remains open, one thing has never changed--our struggle has always been about our patients. We are devoted to our patients. Delivering care to our community will continue to be our highest priority and our final aim. As a means of expressing my deep gratitude for your continued support, I invite you to come to our hospital, not as a patient, but as the friend that you have already proven to be. I promise you will see firsthand—whether in the kindness and intelligence of our caregivers or the bravery and courage of our patients—all that is truly fine and good in our shared humanity. In the coming year, I wish each of you excellent health in mind, body and spirit. More importantly, I offer you hope for the future. I honestly believe that if poor health can render even the youngest and most vital of us hopeless, then good health can give any one of us, no matter our age or station in life, the strength and courage to change the world. Sincerely, Dr. Richard Powers
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