A charity that funds programs to expand access to emergency medical care for people in remote areas announced Tuesday it will make grants to upgrade technology at several rural Nevada hospitals.
The Leona M. and Harry B. Helmsley Charitable Trust said it will provide grants totaling $11.3 million to hospitals in towns including Caliente, Ely, Incline Village, Lovelock and Yerington to buy diagnostic and radiology equipment like CT scanners and X-ray devices.
“Your ZIP code shouldn’t determine your health care outcomes,” Walter Panzirer, a Helmsley Charitable Trust representative, said in a statement.
Panzirer said the aim is to provide access to the same equipment found in urban centers to patients at rural hospitals.
Carson Valley Medical Center in Gardnerville will get $3.6 million to build and equip a hybrid interventional radiology and cardiac catheterization lab and purchase a new X-ray machine, the trust said.
The Nevada Community Foundation will get $2.2 million for mammography and fluoroscopy diagnostic equipment at Desert View Hospital in Pahrump and a portable X-ray machine for Mesa View Regional Hospital in Mesquite.
Boulder City Hospital will get $736,000 for mammography and mobile fluoroscopic X-ray equipment.
A 10th grant of $462,000 will go to Dignity Health-St. Rose Dominican Hospital in Henderson to establish a medical simulation center featuring six high-fidelity patient simulators, beds and equipment.
Since 2008, the Helmsley Foundation said it has committed more than $3 billion for charitable purposes, including $522 million through its Rural Healthcare Program.
Funds have gone to organizations and initiatives in seven states: North Dakota, South Dakota, Nebraska, Wyoming, Minnesota, Iowa and Montana.