Town pledges funds to ‘kick-start’ fundraising for new hospital

The town of Sahuarita has pledged $1 million toward a 78-bed hospital planned by Carondelet Health Network at the southwest corner of La Villita and Sahuarita roads.

Town Manager Jim Stahle, one of more than 100 guests at a hospital fundraising event last week at the home of Dick and Nan Walden of Farmers Investment Co., said the town pledged last year to set aside $200,000 a year for the next five years for the hospital.

Stahle noted, however, that the pledge does not constitute a check. It will be up to the Town Council to decide when and if the money will be turned over to Carondelet.

He said the town pledged the money to “kick-start the project.”

He said, thanks to the many generous and caring people in this area, he had few doubts that Carondelet will raise the $10 million it says it needs from this area to complete the hospital.

Carondelet has pledged to invest $84 million in the new Sahuarita hospital.

Stahle said the hospital has widespread support in the region as a “service long sought after.”

Furthermore, he said, the hospital will mean an economic boom by bringing a major employer to the area.

“(Fundraising) is the M.0. for this particular company, and I’m confident they’ll get the support they seek,” he said.

Stahle said it will be up to town residents to decide whether town financial support of the hospital is a proper expenditure of taxpayer funds.

The public campaign to raise $10 million won’t begin officially until about one-third or one-half of the funds are raised from private donors, corporations and other sources, said Jannie Cox, founder and chief executive officer of the Carondelet Foundation, Carondelet’s fundraising arm.

She said another determining factor in the hospital construction is population growth in the Sahuarita-Green Valley area. Carondelet is basing its plans for the hospital on the population in the area reaching 60,000 by the year 2012.

kengle@gvnews.com | 547-9732