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$5 million donation to help fund care center

CARRIE MILLER PHOTO | Lee Feil puts on Gertrude & Louis Feil Campus for Ambulatory Care labeled scrubs she received as a gift from PBMC Health.

A long anticipated ambulatory care center in Manorville will open its doors in May thanks in part to the largest philanthropic donation Peconic Bay Medical Health System has received to date.

The Louis Feil Charitable Lead Annuity Trust donated $5 million toward the completion of the center.

In a dedication ceremony Friday afternoon, PBMC Health, which includes Peconic Bay Medical Center, unveiled the sign for the new center. It has been named The Gertrude & Louis Feil Campus for Ambulatory Care, in appreciation of the Feil family’s donation.

So far PBMC Health has raised $12.8 million of its $13 million campaign to build the center, “Building Upon the Promise of Excellence,” which began in January 2011, according to Samantha Vigliotta, director of donor relations.

Its other philanthropic donations also include two seven-figure gifts from donors who have asked to remain anonymous.  The PBMC Auxiliary, a non-profit volunteer and fundraising organization within the hospital, has pledged $1 million, and hospital employees have also contributed to the purchase of new electronic medical equipment, according to a press release.

The center, a four-building medical campus, is located on County Road 111 off exit 70 on Long Island Expressway. It will, for the first time, extend local care to “everyone in Eastern Brookhaven town” said Brookhaven Town Supervisor Ed Romaine, who thanked the Feil family for their generosity.

The center’s first building is slated to open sometime around Memorial Day, offering a primary/family care office, an OB-GYN practice, pediatrics, orthopedics and an urgent care center, said Demetrios Kadenas, chief development officer.

A ribbon cutting ceremony will be scheduled closer to the center’s opening.

The center’s second building is scheduled to open toward the end of 2013, and will include a center for digestive diseases, urology services, general surgery and additional primary care, Mr. Kadenas said.

Plans for the remaining buildings are still in development and may include different types of prevention services, according to a July press release.

PBMC Health is partnering with the Park Ridge Development Organization to lease the four-building site.

Recognizing the community’s need for medical care, Jeffrey J. Feil said his family decided to help.

“You are able to help so many people so quickly that didn’t have the facilities [available],” he said. “You’re really giving something to the people right away.”

“What do you say to someone who gives a gift like this,” said John Kanas, whose philanthropic donation made the hospital’s Kanas Center for Advanced Surgery possible.

The two had met while working on a board at Cornell Medical School, Mr. Kanas said.

“I asked him if he would consider this as a charity,” Mr. Kanas said.  A couple weeks later they received a letter regarding the donation.

The Trust has given philanthropic gifts to other health institutions, including South Nassau Hospital in Oceanside.

“Their generosity will help exceed and define what the meaning of care is,” Mr. Romaine said. “We are so lucky.”

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