Teaching Hospitals Land $100 Million Donation

Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Boston Children’s Hospital will receive a $100 million donation from Boston-area philanthropists Robert Hale Jr. and Karen Hale, the Harvard-affiliated teaching hospitals announced Monday.

The $100 million gift will be split between the two hospitals, with each receiving $50 million from the couple. The funds will support the hospitals in their current research, expansion efforts, and patient care.

“Their gift will help us deliver even more of the best care for so many families, from the most complex and fragile children from around the world to the most essential primary and preventive care in our community, close to home,” Sandra L. Fenwick, president of Boston Children’s Hospital said in the press release.

In response to the donation, both hospitals plan to name buildings after the Hale family. Brigham and Women’s will name their newest building, finished last year, the Hale Building for Transformative Medicine.

Boston Children’s Hospital gained approval in 2016 for an 11-story, $1 billion building that will feature a neonatal intensive care unit and heart center. When it is finished in 2021, it will also be named for the donors.

Robert Hale Jr. is CEO of Granite Telecommunications, a Massachusetts-based company that provides internet, data, and other telecommunications services to businesses in the U.S. and Canada. Hale and his company have previously donated to Connecticut College, the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, and several other New England charities.

Both of the Hales have had ties to the hospitals for years. Karen Hale sits on the Cancer Research and Care advisory board at Brigham and Women’s. Both serve on the Trust Board of Boston Children’s and have chaired fundraising campaigns at Brigham and Women’s.

The Hales’ donation comes after a year of financial difficulty for Brigham and Women’s Hospital. The hospital bought out 1,600 employee contracts last year in an effort to reduce mounting labor expenditures.

Around the same time, proposed cuts to the National Institutes of Health placed financial pressure on the hospital, which is among the top recipients of federal funding. University President Drew G. Faust lobbied Congress in October to maintain NIH funding for Harvard research facilities.

—Staff writer Luke W. Vrotsos can be reached at luke.vrotsos@thecrimson.com. Follow him on Twitter at luke_vrotsos.