JONESBORO -- The University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences' Centers for Children in Jonesboro received a $1 million donation Tuesday, which hospital officials said will be used to continue providing pediatric health care for northeast Arkansas.
The donation comes from the Judd Hill Foundation in Trumann and honors Esther Chapin, who owned the Judd Hill Plantation in Poinsett County and started the foundation in 1985, six years before she died.
"She noted the lack of health care to rural Arkansas," foundation Trustee Mike Gibson of Osceola said of Chapin during Tuesday's announcement of the donation. "She established the foundation with that as a priority. We believe that it's never been more important to provide health care to all."
The 4,000-acre foundation was established by Chapin on one of the largest contiguous farms in Poinsett County with the purpose of conducting research in agriculture, economics and health care.
The foundation also donated $1 million to Arkansas State University in August 2008 to help construct the Donald W. Reynolds Center for Health Sciences on the Jonesboro campus.
Marcy Doderer, president and chief executive officer of Arkansas Children's Hospital in Little Rock, said the funds will be used to provide more specialty services at the Jonesboro facility and to improve diagnostics and ancillary services such as renal ultrasounds, electroencephalography and electrocardiography.
"We'll begin working on a plan," Doderer said. "We will use it to specifically enhance care in this [Jonesboro] clinic."
The center offers specialties in neurology, cardiology, developmental rehabilitation, neurosurgery, surgery and urology.
Children's Hospital and UAMS opened the Centers for Children facility in Jonesboro in September 2012, basing it on a clinic it opened in Lowell in 2007. The Carson Street center, across from St. Bernards Medical Center near downtown, has treated nearly 4,000 children in the 2 1/2 years it's been open.
St. Bernards Medical Center provides laboratory work for blood, radiology and X-rays.
The Jonesboro center was established to provide medical care for families in northeast Arkansas who weren't able to drive the five-hour round trip to Children's Hospital, Gibson said.
"The very best in pediatric health care should be available here in northeast Arkansas, and we are delighted to support it," he said.
UAMS Chancellor Dr. Dan Rahn said the Centers for Children intends to continue developing distance-based care among a network of health-care providers.
"Our goal is to form relationships around the state to meet the needs health-wise," Rahn said. "This is a unique time ... in health care. This gift is a very important initiative."
State Desk on 03/19/2014