OHSU Gets $12 Million Gift for Housing for Families of Patients

A five-story building that will provide housing to thousands of OHSU patients and their families every year till be named the Gary and Christine Rood Family Pavillion, it was announced Tuesday.

The Roods have given $12 million to help fund construction of the facility.

OHSU estimates some 3,000 people will stay in the building, which is being built on Portland's Southwest waterfront near the hospital every year.

"The Gary & Christine Rood Family Pavilion truly will be an oasis of peace and healing for patients and families who rely on OHSU in times of medical crisis," said OHSU President Joe Robertson.

The hospital says that nearly half of OHSU's adult and pediatric patients live in rural Oregon or neighboring states and many struggle to find somewhere to stay while going to OHSU for complex treatments like a bone marrow transplant.

Gary Rood, a former administrator at OHSU, and his wife previously gave $1 million to endow a research professorship at the OHSU Knight Cancer Institute as part of the Knight Cancer Challenge.

"So it is extremely meaningful to Christine and me to be able to provide this level of support for a project that will serve thousands of children and adults each year and make hospital stays much less stressful for their families," he said.

The pavilion is expected to open in 2018.