St. Charles Receives $25,000 Grant For COVID-19 Response

PORT JEFFERSON, NY — St. Charles Hospital has received a $25,000 New York Life Foundation “Love Takes Action” Award for their COVID-19 response to be used to support the hospital’s Department of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation, officials said.

The New York Community Trust awarded the grant to only 20 nonprofits out of 117 applications from across the country, according to a news release. The nonprofits were nominated by New York Life agents and employees.

In a nomination letter, Sheila Kirchner, an outpatient physical therapist, "beautifully portrayed" her real-life experience working at the hospital during the height of the pandemic, officials said. Kirchner recounted how she volunteered to be redeployed from outpatient therapy to the hospital’s inpatient Intensive Care Unit to help prone COVID-19 patients, turning them from their backs onto their stomachs, and opened up about how she held a dying patient’s hand, so that he would not die alone, according to officials.

Kirchner also assisted families in communicating with their loved ones battling COVID-19 using iPads, officials said.

St. Charles’president James O’Connor said Kirchner’s “extremely moving letter” was submitted on behalf of the hospital by Brian Miller from New York Life.

He explained that the hospital staff are grateful for the grant, explaining that they learned through the pandemic, “that love truly does take action, and Sheila, and her colleagues embodied that behavior with all of their patients and families.”

“We are honored that Sheila’s story resonated with the New York Life Foundation,” he added.

St. Charles’ Rehabilitation Unit helps patients suffering from physical setbacks to get back on their feet. More recently, the hospital’s staff helped Suffolk Police Officer Timothy Thrane regain his strength. He spent a little less than a week in rehab after being released from Stony Brook University Hospital where he was for about a month after being struck by a car in the line-of-duty.