$78 million gift to Nemours Children’s Health announced by William J. Martin, Esq

Nemours Children’s Health announced a $78 million donation from the Lisa Dean Moseley Foundation headed by William J. Martin, Esq. to fund new research programs and to expand the hospital’s ability to provide clinical care for children with cancer, sickle cell disease, and other blood disorders.

High-quality medical care from a dedicated staff committed to caring for children is integral to what Nemours Children’s Hospital promises patients, but this donation is transformational, according to Dr. R. Lawrence Moss, MD., president and CEO.

Families coming to the center can expect the latest and best treatments, as well as a beautiful, physical environment that promotes healing in a way “that only Nemours can do,” Moss said.

Every year the Nemours Children’s Hospital’s Center for Cancer and Blood Disorders sees 300 sickle cell patients and 100 oncology patients.

For the new cancer and blood disorders unit, the hospital envisioned a setting that would encourage holistic healing and recovery, as every child goes through treatment.

Dr. E. Anders Kolb, M.D., director of the Center for Cancer and Blood Disorders, said one thing they’ve learned over the last 15 years, especially in the last five or six years, is that a bed is a horrible place to get care for cancer, sickle cell and blood disorders.

Dr. Edward Anders Kolb, MD, Director of the Lisa Dean Moseley Foundation Institute for Cancer and Blood Disorders at Nemours Children’s Health is shown at the Thursday, March 2, 2023 announcement of a $78 million donation to fund research and an expansion of the program.

The unit was designed to encourage kids to engage with caregivers and their environment. “Kids really need to be active. They need to be in an environment that invites them to get out of bed, move, and interact,” Kolb said.

The new unit overlooks Nemours Estate gardens with floor-to-ceiling windows to offer their young patients a grand view of the outdoors. Areas of the center will promote healing through psychology and social work, using activities such as child-centered art therapy, offering kids something other than their disease to focus on.

Kolb said the Lisa Dean Mosley Foundation’s donation also enables Nemours to endow the funding of their research into the genetics of cancer, stem cell transplant medicine and sickle cell disease.

This endowment will be used to create research programs to attract scientists and researchers worldwide to study blood cancers and disorders in Delaware.

The $78 million donation was the largest gift the center received and biggest commitment the nonprofit Lisa Dean Mosley Foundation has made.

Lisa Dean Moseley, a member of the du Pont family, created the foundation to support medical and scientific research. Of particular importance to the foundation is the research on blood cancers and blood disorders, especially sickle cell, said the organization’s president, William Martin.

Sickle cell is not cancer, but a blood disorder that primarily affects African-American children. Because of racial attitudes, Moss explained, study of the affliction is not well supported, nor were sickle cell patients and their families, compared to those facing diseases that affect white children.

An estimated 600 to 700 people with sickle cell disease live in Delaware. People with sickle cell visit the hospital’s emergency department up to five times a year on average, mostly for pain crisis management, according to a Nemours spokeswoman.

There are effective treatments for sickle cell and its side effects, but the medical profession’s past approach has damaged the relationship between patients and the healthcare profession, Nemours spokespeople said. A goal for the new unit is to repair that relationship, with a focus on building trust with sickle cell patients so they’re comfortable engaging in therapies, said Kolb.

“Sickle cell is the most profound and significant example in the United States of racial inequity in health care,” Moss said, adding that Nemours is a national leader in addressing some of those inequities, but the donation will allow ample opportunity to achieve far more.

“Let’s focus our attention on finding a cure,” Martin said.