Eisenhower Medical Center
The Eisenhower Medical Center of Rancho Mirage, California, USA is the Coachella Valley's only not-for-profit hospital, one of the top one hundred hospitals in the United States in 2005 and the location of the world-famous Betty Ford Center.
The facility is a General Acute Care Hospital in Rancho Mirage with Basic Emergency Services as of 2006. [1]
Named for President Dwight D. Eisenhower, the hospital credits its initial creation to two events in 1966 when entertainer Bob Hope was asked to lend his name to a charity golf tournament that still bears his name today and to serve on the board of the hospital that would be built from the tournament's proceeds. Hope's schedule did not allow for his participation and suggested his wife, Dolores Hope, serve instead. Mrs. Hope was an exceptionally experienced and gifted philanthropist and agreed to take the job. She has served in the capacities of President, Chairman of the Board and Chairman Emeritus since 1968 and has participated in every major decision regarding the hospital since then.
The original eighty acres of land were donated by Bob and Dolores Hope and both helped raise private funds for the hospital's construction. Some of the biggest names in American entertainment and politics donated their time to fundraisers and dedication ceremonies. The hospital's official website lists the following celebrities who participated over the years since the hospital's 1969 groundbreaking:
- Richard Nixon
- Gerald Ford
- Spiro Agnew
- George H.W. Bush
- Ronald Reagan
- Frank Sinatra
- George Burns
- Bing Crosby
- Gene Autry
- Lucille Ball
Two months after ground was broken, Dolores Hope helped form the Eisenhower Medical Center Auxiliary, which has since become one of the most successful volunteer organizations of its kind in the world.
Bob Hope served as master of ceremonies for the new hospital's opening on November, 1971. Tributes to local philanthropists Mr. and Mrs. Walter Probst, Mr. and Mrs. Peter Kiewit and Mrs. Hazel Wright took the form of three medical buildings bearing their names. Hope also presided at the opening of the forty-seven bed Mamie Eisenhower Wing.
Major expansion of the center continued into the 1980s with every major event and opening attended by the Hopes despite their exceptionally busy schedule. Plannings and openings that the Hopes participated in that time included those of the Annenberg Center for Health Sciences, Betty Ford Center, Barbara Sinatra Children's Center, Dolores Hope Outpatient Care Center and Uihlein Administration Building.
By 1990, the hospital's 3000th open heart surgical procedure was performed while the work that the Hopes placed in the Eisenhower Medical Center continued to earn them worldwide accolades and honors, including a combined total of sixty honorary doctorates. The center's twenty-fifth anniversary in 1996 saw the Hopes receive its most prestigious award, the Eisenhower Centennial Award.
The world's attention was turned to Eisenhower Medical Center in January, 2006 when President Gerald Ford was admitted for sixteen days for treatment of pneumonia. Upon Gerald Ford's death on December 26, 2006 his body was taken to Eisenhower Medical Center where Betty Ford issued a press release confirming his death, his body remained there until the start of funeral services on December 29.
References
- ↑ California Department of Health Services