Charitable gifts help Saint Luke's North Hospital save lives and benefit patients in many ways
At Saint Luke’s North Hospital, with locations at Barry Road and Smithville, the generosity of our friends and neighbors strengthens our ability to provide more health care services to the community.
- Individual donations and community support of Saint Luke’s North events—the Vignoble Food & Wine Fest, Spelman Golf Classic, and Pink Carpet event—played a vital role in bringing 3-D mammography technology to Saint Luke’s North Hospital’s Center for Women’s Care at the Barry Road campus. Unlike standard mammograms with single images, 3-D mammography takes multiple images of the breast, helping doctors to more accurately detect cancer sooner.
- Gifts to the Saint Luke’s North Compassionate Care Fund help bridge the gap for qualified patients who lack sufficient resources to pay for health essentials, transportation to and from appointments, and co-pays for needed medications. An estimated 42,000 Northlanders do not have adequate health coverage or face financial insecurity as a result of a health issue.
- Thanks in part to donor support, “Playing It Safe in the Northland” screens high school athletes for heart abnormalities in conjunction with Saint Luke’s Mid America Heart Institute’s Athletic Heart Clinic. In 2015, two athletes were found to have potentially life-threatening heart problems, which were corrected, thanks to this program. Unexpected sudden cardiac arrest is the leading cause of death—75 percent—in young athletes between the ages of 15-25, the majority of whom have no symptoms prior to arrest.
Watch this KMBC 9 news story about how this heart screening program is saving young athletes in the Northland.
In 2013, the Spelman Medical Foundation, which supported Saint Luke’s North Hospital and its precursor, Spelman Memorial Hospital in Smithville, merged with Saint Luke’s Foundation. The legacy of Dr. Arch E. Spelman and the Spelman Medical Foundation’s support of awareness, education, and outreach for the community carry on through Saint Luke’s Foundation and Saint Luke’s Health System’s mission to strengthen and enhance health care services in the Greater Kansas City area.