Monday, June 16, 2025
6/16/2025
Community Project Funding/Congressionally Directed Spending - Non-Construction - Located in one of the poorest municipalities in Massachusetts (Southbridge), Harrington Hospital's 6-bed intensive care unit is insufficient to meet local demand. The hospital regularly is forced to overflow critically ill patients into medical units in the care of ICU trained nurses, which is suboptimal for patients, families, and medical staff. Pursuant to a comprehensive needs assessment, Harrington is undertaking a $7,500,000 project to renovate its entire ICU and add 2 additional beds. While the total project cost includes construction, this funding request of $497,400 is solely for essential medical equipment and supplies. Central Massachusetts has substantially fewer beds per-capita than other regions of the commonwealth. Due to bed capacity challenges and high demand for its services, the region's sole academic medical center regularly is forced to decline transfer requests for high acuity patients from community hospitals, including Harrington. Harrington's ICU renovation and expansion project will substantially improve access to intensive care for residents of Southbridge and surrounding towns in southwestern Worcester County and will decrease the frequency of its patient transfer requests. By expanding local intensive care capacity and upgrading from outdated medical equipment to state-of-the-art, this project will improve access to critical care for local patients in the Southbridge area, while also modestly improving overall bed capacity in the commonwealth's most under-bedded region.
HHS’ Tracking Accountability in Government Grants System (TAGGS) website provides access to detailed descriptions of grants, loans, aggregated direct payments and other types of financial assistance awarded by the HHS Operating Divisions (OPDIVs) and the Office of the Secretary Staff Divisions (STAFFDIVs).