The Gift of Life Memorial at Fairbanks Memorial Hospital will be a beautiful space tucked at the North end of the building, offering a place for people and families to reflect and remember on a life lived, a person loved, and the lives saved through the incredible gift of organ donation. Inspired by the remarkable support of our community following the tragic loss of Brooke Fisher in 2021,the Foundation is proud to provide this space to honor the lives of people that have given the ultimate gift, the Gift of Life. The groundbreaking for this project was held on August 31, 2021, and construction is slated to be completed summer of 2022.

In 2019 at new CT Scanner was installed at FMH. The Force CT Scanner offers the industry’s fastest and most versatile scan capabilities. And it’s fast! The Force can scan the entire heart in less than one heartbeat and can perform an entire body scan in under two seconds. That means with many exams, patients will not have to hold their breath. FMH is happy to be able to provide this cutting edge technology at our community hospital. Unrestricted gifts to the Hospital Foundation helped make this equipment purchase possible.

In March 2017, the Ragsdale family came to the Foundation office, anticipating the birth of a child who would not survive. They had researched about a Cuddle Cot, a bassinet with a cooling device designed to preserve a stillborn baby’s body, which would extend the time a family has together in the hospital. Knowing this was something that would benefit other families, the Ragdales presented the concept to the Foundation and made a memorial donation to the perinatal bereavement fund in their son’s name, Neil, and so began the fundraising effort to purchase a Cuddle Cot. In 2018, the Foundation purchased a Cuddle Cot for the Fairbanks Memorial Hospital Women & Infant Services department with generous donations from our caring community.

The Hospital Foundation began work in 2012 on design and construction of a replacement for the aging surgical suites original to the Hospital when it was built in 1972. This $88 million dollar project was the largest infrastructure project since the original construction of the Hospital. Construction was completed in the spring of 2017 both ahead of schedule and below budget.

The Hospital Foundation set a fundraising goal of $1.5 million so that it would be able to show bondholders the community backed the project. While the project is complete, donor opportunities are still available for this state-of-the-art facility.

Technology advances quickly and equipment becomes obsolete. When it was time to replace equipment in the Radiation Oncology Department it wasn’t as simple as taking an old piece out and moving a new one in. Especially with equipment requiring a Physicist be present for installation and a concrete vault to operate in.

The Hospital Foundation along with undesignated funding from the community was able to bring the True Beam linear accelerator into Fairbanks. This highly advanced tool will deliver the most accurate radiation treatment in the world. This is part of the Hospital Foundation’s goal to keep our friends and family at home for their cancer treatment.

Fairbanks Memorial Hospital imaging & Breast Center is pleased to offer 3D Mammography technology to interior Alaska. Tomosynthesis is the latest technology developed to improve detection and characterization of breast cancer.

The decision to purchase the tomosynthesis machine came after a $500,000.00 fundraising commitment from the Circle of Hope committee. The machine was put into regular use in June of 2015, thanks to overwhelming support from the Fairbanks community.