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Congressman Brian Higgins announced $1,968,275 in federal funding through the U.S. Department of Homeland Security’s Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) for Roswell Park Comprehensive Cancer Center. The funding is awarded to provide relief for some expenses incurred during the height of the pandemic.
“Roswell Park is home to an especially vulnerable patient population, which creates unique complications and considerations when fighting both a pandemic and cancer,” Higgins said. “Local hospitals and health care workers faced enormous strains during the pandemic. This funding helps to replace a portion of the extra costs to free-up critical resources for Roswell Park’s core mission.”
Roswell Park President and CEO Candace S. Johnson, Ph.D., said, “We are incredibly grateful to Congressman Higgins and his colleagues in the House and Senate for helping centers like Roswell Park to recover losses we incurred with the dramatic arrival of COVID-19 into our communities. Restoration of funds we had to direct toward construction, supplies, staff retraining and enhanced infection-control protections in order to respond appropriately to the pandemic ensures that health care centers can direct their resources where they are intended, toward patient care and core operations.”
The award was made to provide reimbursement for a portion of Roswell Park’s COVID-19-related costs during the period between March and May 2020. The funding helps pay for costs associated with ventilator use, staffing and personal protective equipment, such as N95 masks, gowns and face shields. Roswell Park was one of four New York recipients in this round of funding.
A major disaster designation was requested by New York state and declared by the federal government in March of 2020, making state and local governments as well as certain nonprofit entities, eligible for federal assistance related to the national health emergency.
Roswell Park Comprehensive Cancer Center is one of just 52 National Cancer Institute-designated Comprehensive Cancer Centers in the nation and employs 3,000 people in Western New York.