Nursing education at St. Vincent Charity Medical Center gets a big boost

Thursday, September 01, 2016

Tags: St. Vincent Charity Medical Center , health care

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The Robert S. and Germaine Lahiff Hines Endowment has given St. Vincent Charity Medical Center a $1.9 million gift to go toward strengthening nursing education. The news was featured in an article that ran in The Plain Dealer.

Below is the article that ran in The Plain Dealer:

St. Vincent Charity receives $1.9 million gift for nursing education

St. Vincent Charity Medical Center has received a $1.9 million gift—one of the largest in its history—that will go towards strengthening nursing education, the medical center announced Wednesday.

The gift comes from the Robert S. and Germaine Lahiff Hines Endowment.

Germaine Hines, who was 98 when she died in 2006, was a graduate of St. Vincent Charity School of Nursing. She was a first lieutenant in the Army Corps of Nurses during World War II, and was among the first to administer a new drug – penicillin – to soldiers serving on the front line, according to a St. Vincent release. For her war efforts, she received a Commendation Ribbon for noteworthy service, the American Campaign Medal, World War II Victory Medal and a letter from President Harry S. Truman.

Robert, her husband, who died in 2014, worked for General Motors before becoming an educator. He served as dean of the College of Arts and Humanities at the University of Hawaii Manoa, where the couple lived until their deaths.

The endowment will be used to further nursing professional education, including tuition reimbursement, the development of nurse educators, and specialized training for critical, emergency, surgery and behavioral health care at St. Vincent Charity.

"This amazing gift by Germaine and Robert Hines was given because of their love and appreciation for the Sisters of Charity of St. Augustine and the incredible education Mrs. Hines received decades ago," Dr. David Perse, president and CEO of St. Vincent Charity, said in a release. "The Sisters taught not just the skills and discipline of nursing, but the importance of providing dignity to every patient. We are grateful that the Hines endowment will help preserve that legacy and provide opportunities for our own nurses to continue to deliver care beyond medicine."

Founded in 1898, the St. Vincent Charity School of Nursing trained more than 2,600 nurses over its 90-year history, according to the release.

St. Vincent Charity no longer provides nurse education through its own school, but nursing professional education remains a vibrant and evolving priority for the hospital, the release said.

St. Vincent Charity Medical Center is a ministry of the Sisters of Charity Health System.