Photo: Mass General Brigham
SALEM, Mass. (WBZ NewsRadio) — Matthew Swartz, chef and Swampscott, Mass. native, nearly cut off his finger at a Thanksgiving in 2019. Now, he donated something valuable to the hospital that saved his hand.
Swartz headed to the ER at Salem Hospital that night. Over the past five years, Swartz and his sister, Debbie Shalom, had donated $40,000 dollars to the hospital through The Swartz Shalom Charitable Foundation.
“[He] was very impressed with the care he received here, and he’s a “giving back” kind of guy and that has led to this,” Dr. Karen Eldin, Blood Bank Director at Salem Hospital, told WBZ NewsRadio.
Recently, the pair donated another $10,000 for the emergency medicine department to purchase a “smart fridge” for blood storage.
This would be the fifth consecutive annual donation from the restaurateur and philanthropist.
“Everybody’s really excited," Dr. Eldin added. "Anytime we can make something safer and closer to a patient, that’s a win for us.”
She described the refrigerator like a vending machine for blood storage: “the blood is kind of stored in individual spaces in the fridge, and so if you have a trauma patient, you can get the products we use for trauma by selecting it and it will dispense that product to you,” she said.
The process of getting blood to the ER before the new addition would take some time and that could be the difference between life and death for those patients.
“We have to physically take the blood, put it in a cooler, and then we have to transport it to the emergency room,” Dr. Eldin added “When someone’s bleeding, every minute can matter.”
The "smart fridge" also has a supply data feature that notifies the blood bank when blood is being dispensed, so they can stay on top of refills when needed.
WBZ NewsRadio's Kendall Buhl (@WBZKendall) reports.
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