Robert Kraft donates $50 million to Massachusetts General Hospital for community health equity
BOSTON - Robert Kraft and his family's foundation have donated $50 million to Massachusetts General Hospital. The hospital said Wednesday that the gift from the owner of the New England Patriots is "revolutionary."
The money will support community health and health equity and "address healthcare disparities caused by race, ethnicity, geography, and economic status," according to a statement from MGH.
Kraft helped establish the Kraft Center for Community Health at the hospital back in 2011.
This new donation will continue to help the center and allow MGH to expand its blood donation facility. The money will also create a "permanent Robert K. Kraft Endowed Chair in Diversity, Equity and Inclusion."
"By creating an endowed position focused on addressing clinical health care disparities, Robert Kraft and the Kraft family are creating important pathways for patients living with sickle cell disease to receive comprehensive medical care which has not traditionally been available to them," MGH senior vice president Dr. Joseph Betancourt said in a statement.
"I am proud to live in a city that is home to what I consider the greatest hospitals in the world, led by Mass General," Kraft said in the statement. "Yet, I've always been troubled by healthcare inequities, as I know there are many in nearby communities who don't have healthcare and can't access the excellent care others receive here."
"With this gift, it is not only our intention to grow and expand the scale of the Kraft Center, but to also help bring increased visibility to the equity issues that exist in therapy treatment and development," Kraft said.
"It's their ability to say yes, we want to make a difference," said Dr. Betancourt, who heads Equity and Community Health at MGH.
They're treating patients with sickle cell anemia. Olaide Adekanbi has dealt with the aches and pains that come along with the disease since birth.
"I think it's in that word access. Us being able to go to the hospital and maybe have shorter wait times in the emergency room, being able to see our health care providers in a shorter time frame," Adekanbi said. "Having a closer relationship between not only us and our providers, but us and our community."
The money will help treat patients like Adekanbi, but also to find a cure for the disease that targets African Americans significantly.
"It was conceived in 2019, has been building slowly going from 25 patients now to about 160 and what we can do with comprehensive services, with these resources, will really be unprecedented," Dr. Betancourt said.
A donation of this size comes from a personal place, one that hits close to home for the Patriots organization.
Safety Devin McCourty has seen his aunt and uncle battle the painful disease. "My aunt passed away early 2019 who is really the reason we started to get involved with sickle cell," McCourty said. "But my grandfather has sickle cell, my uncle is currently living with sickle cell, my dad had the trait."
Betancourt said the Kraft donation will allow them to go into communities with mobile vans to address substance abuse and hypertension.
"We're going to do bigger and better and more," Betancourt said. "It's a transformational gift."