Supporting Hospitals and Helping Children

Mr. Rangos himself takes all the praise in stride, preferring to focus on the importance of supporting hospitals and medical research, and stressing the need to help children obtain the best possible care.

“I’ve always been interested in education and medical assistance for children because they’re our crop of tomorrow. If you help children, you help build a strong country. And you can do that by supporting research that helps cure disease. There’s nothing worse in this world than a child suffering from a debilitating illness. Children are so innocent, and it’s our responsibility to help them. That’s why I do it,” he said, noting that he drew his inspiration to help others from legendary industrialist Ernest Tener Weir (1877-1958).

E.T. Weir was a symbol of the American Dream. Armed with only an 8th-grade education, he began his rise to the top of one of the world’s wealthiest steel companies as an office boy for U.S. Steel Corp. By 1905, at age 28, Weir was general manager of a tin plate mill near Pittsburgh. That year, he and J.R. Phillips bought a tin mill in West Virginia. In 1909, Weirton Steel relocated, built ten more mills and founded the boomtown of Weirton, West Virginia (where Mr. Rangos grew up). By 1915, Weir had 50 mills and was the world’s second leading producer of tinplate, used to make food cans. The first 20 years of the company’s operations exceeded production expectations. In 1929, the Great Depression led Weir to merge his company with Michigan Steel and the interests of M.A. Hanna, forming a new steel corporation, National Steel, to become the fifth largest steel company in America. National Steel steadily supplied products for the United States military during and after World War II. With annual revenues of $1.1 billion and a labor force of 3,800 employees, it was once the country’s seventh largest U.S. steel producer. U.S. Steel Corp bought National Steel in 2003, and became the largest steel producer in the United States. Weir also started People’s Bank and the Bank of Weirton (now WesBanco). Among other philanthropic causes, he donated $450,000 to establish the Mary H. Weir Public Library in 1956, and approved construction for the Weir High School Stadium.

“What E.T. Weir did for me as a young boy is something that has stayed with me all my life, and it’s something I’ll never forget. He set an example. He was an accomplished man of industry who really cared for the under-privileged. He built the Weirton Christian Center, with a gymnasium, a pool and a library, where I spent time competing in youth athletics and reading the Encyclopedia Britannica. I just thought, ‘Here’s the owner of a large independent steel company. Why does this man care about me?’ Then I realized that maybe I should try to be more like him,” Mr. Rangos said.

“Where I grew up, we learned to mingle with each other by learning that we all had things in common. Interscholastic sports at Weir High were a big part of my life. As a child, I knew someone cared enough for me to be medically examined for the Athletic programs and the Boy Scout camp I participated in. One of those exams found a heart murmur when he was 12. Had that not been found, my condition could have destroyed my heart muscle,” he said.

“I ended up graduating from Turtle Creek High School in Pennsylvania, but I just want to say that someone in Weirton always looked after us. That always made me wonder why someone cared and looked after us. And as I became an adult and prospered in my business endeavors, I thought back to those times, and I asked myself, ‘Why don’t I do the same thing E.T. Weir did?’ And that inspiration is what led me to Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh,” he said.

“Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh is one of the few that won’t turn any child away. The extent to which they care for disadvantaged children, regardless of race, color or creed, made a huge and lasting impression on me,” he added.

When Mr. Rangos first got involved, Children’s was struggling with its operating budget. “Children’s had financial difficulties at times, and things were dicey for a while,” he said.

But he kept a steady hand behind the wheel, and consistently told his fellow board members to have courage. “We needed to stick with it to see things through. I knew that if we were patient and just stayed focused, we would eventually overcome our problems,” he said.

Always ready to give credit where credit is due, Mr. Rangos also noted that a number of hospital employees also worked very hard to ensure that Children’s steady climb to the top would be a successful trek, citing Amanda Barnhardt as a shining example among those hardworking employees.

“Mandy worked for the event-planning division under the Hospital Foundation, and she organized many important events. She would always do all the tough work. She had a lot of courage, and came to the forefront, and she did a remarkable job. She was very integral to our ultimate success. Mandy wasn’t in it only for herself. She really cared about the institution. You have to be selfless when you work at a hospital, and she was one of those selfless people I’m thinking of,” he said.

“The employees raised $1 million. They would go to companies and the general public and obtain financial aid. It had become a very important event in the city of Pittsburgh, and the bulk of the money went to Hospital’s program. The employees worked very hard, and some very important donations came in, so that destitute children could also receive the care they need,” Mr. Rangos added.

Providing Free Care

Children’s does many things it does not get compensated for, so the CHP Foundation finds ways to help the money flow because there is a lump sum of uncompensated funds the Hospital expends every year, and the Foundation helps Children’s continue rendering free services and care by alleviating that financial pressure.

The Free Care Fund is one of several programs administered by the Foundation (e.g., Kids Helping Kids Schools Campaign, Special Occasion Program, Family Life Fund, Pennies from Heaven Fund, Grateful Families and Children’s Miracle Network). FCF was established before Mr. Rangos got involved, but he helped transform it, and it started making an even greater impact.

Historically, Mr. Barrett explained, the Free Care Fund is something in which people in Pittsburgh and supporters of the Hospital take great pride. It helps Children’s provide care when families can’t afford it due to lack of insurance or a child’s chronic illness, or because the cost of care exceeds what insurance will pay.

“That’s where the Free Care Fund comes in. Many, many children in this region were uninsured, and the Foundation was the only source of payment. We would get a phone call from the Hospital telling us about a family that needed money for medicine and other forms of medical treatment, and we would arrange for a check to be sent to the pharmacy or Hospital or wherever it needed to go in order to take care of the family’s needs,” he said.

“It’s obviously a little more complicated that that today. We’re still providing what ultimately amounts to free care for people, but it’s different in the sense that a lot of it is represented by under-compensated care. Around 40-50 percent of our kids are on public assistance, and the state throws in a little bit of money, but that doesn’t even begin to remotely cover costs of the care the kids need when they come here. That’s why programs like the Free Care Fund are so important to the Hospital’s mission. Funds from the Foundation’s programs help make all of that possible. We provide funding to the Hospital that helps backstop a lot of that uncompensated or under-compensated care,” Mr. Barrett said, stressing that other programs also help Children’s provide first-rate services and care.

“The other thing we do, which doesn’t necessarily qualify as ‘free care,’ is the support we provide the families of sick children. In a way, calling us a ‘children’s hospital’ can be viewed as a misnomer. Yes, our patients are children, but when a child is sick, the whole family is sick. The child’s parents, brothers and sisters are also dramatically affected,” he said.

“The kids who come here generally don’t have broken bones. We do get some of those cases, of course, but they often have a deadly form of cancer, or they have a severe genetic disorder. Or they need a new heart, kidney or liver, and they could be living here for months or even years waiting for the new organ and post-transplantation care. We have a Ronald McDonald House on Children’s campus with 60 units in it. If families don’t have the financial resources to pay for their child’s care, they live there,” he said, noting that even physicians from other great hospitals bring their children to Pittsburgh.

“We have a family that literally bought a house in Pittsburgh. The father works in Boston – he’s a doctor at Boston Children’s. The wife and son live here, while the father and their other son commute back and forth from Pittsburgh to Boston. And they’re doing that because they have a child who needs a new heart, and this is the best place in the world for children to get a heart transplant,” he said.

Ultimately, Mr. Barrett said, the Hospital takes care of all children, regardless of whether their families have enough medical insurance or not, and the Foundation plays a large partnership role in helping Children’s do that.

“We partner with the Hospital to help free up its budget, and we do that in different ways. Some money comes directly from the Free Care Fund, but some people prefer to give to Family Life, for example, and in that situation, if we help support the Family Life program, which costs millions of dollars, that ends up saving the Hospital millions, which it can reapply to another area. There’s also a greatest needs fund, which is basically unrestricted money for the Hospital, which can allocate it toward free care, or use it to provide primary care in poor communities,” he said.

“So the other piece of the puzzle is that we provide a lot of care for families, and that ranges from counseling services to other uncompensated services like Family Life. And those services are also something we spend a lot of time supporting. We don’t get paid for those, but those services are very important, and that’s also what helps make Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh a children’s hospital, as opposed to a regular adult hospital,” he added.

Community Outreach

In addition to the Free Care Fund and other programs, Mr. Barrett pointed out, Children’s further excels by offering a number of community outreach programs promoting the health and wellbeing of children and communities – from providing early literacy support to helping a father find a home for his family:

  1. Child Advocacy Center, providing services to protect children and strengthen families by recognizing and documenting child abuse, while remaining a child friendly and family-friendly resource. The center also offers comprehensive medical care and case management for children who are in foster care or kinship care, or who have been in the foster care system and have been reunited with their biological parents.
  2. Community Education Program. Community education classes are held throughout the Pittsburgh area to educate parents and their children about pediatric health concerns, injury prevention, child development issues and parenting.
  3. Family Care Connection Centers. Seven centers offer a wide range of support services for at-risk families to ensure that parents and children receive the social services and support they need to develop healthy lifestyles and secure greater access to healthcare.
  4. PPG Healthy Stories Program. In partnership with the PPG Industries Foundation and other local donors, this year-round program teaches children to read; distributes gift book packets; and encourages storytelling through workshops for parents and caregivers.
  5. Injury Prevention, which endeavors to reduce the occurrence, severity and consequences of injuries and accidents for children, and to provide education, research and advocacy for safer communities.
  6. Kisumu Urban Apostolate Programes – Pandipieri, Children’s farthest outreach effort, located in Africa in the poorest area of Kisumu, Kenya.
  7. Ronald McDonald House Charities/Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh Care Mobile. A “Doctor’s Office on Wheels,” the RMH/CHP Care Mobile brings primary pediatric care and health education to medically under-served neighborhoods. The Care Mobile travels to local schools to offer primary care services free of charge.