The Louis Arturo Rago Memorial Fund
Five years ago, we created a fund at MJHS Health System as a way to honor Louie’s memory. Our goal was to support those in need of pediatric hospice care as well as the clinicians who care for patients and their families by providing critical outreach, education, and training opportunities.
Since its creation, we have raised close to $75,000 for The Louis Arturo Rago Memorial Fund. Our community has been essential to this accomplishment, and we continue to be moved by your generosity and support for these difficult and necessary efforts. This fund is our celebration of Louie, and we hope you will join us again in supporting this worthy cause in honor of what would have been his 8th birthday.
It is difficult to be reminded that pediatric hospice and palliative care exist. The emotionally taxing nature of this topic has led to a lack of awareness and understanding about how the lives of terminally ill children and their families can be improved. Until MJHS entered our lives, we rarely felt that we had the appropriate support to not only physically care for Louie but to also cope emotionally and psychologically. MJHS truly made our lives better, during a time which seemed hopeless. MJHS doctors, nurses, and social workers are courageous and compassionate people who prioritized Louie’s comfort, as well as ours. We will always cherish the way MJHS cared for Louie, while also providing much needed support to our entire family, allowing us to spend quality time together at home.
The investment in MJHS’s pediatric program is steadfast, with the goal of training more clinicians to care for the specialized needs of pediatric patients and their families. Over the last few years, MJHS has continued to commit to agency-wide pediatric education and has successfully trained all adult nurses and social workers to have complete competency in Pediatric Hospice.
- MJHS has seen a 60% increase in pediatric patients served and steadily grown the number of staff supporting pediatric families including social workers and nurses.
- They have supported early career talent in the field including a pediatric nephrology fellow, two nurse practitioner students, a steady rotation of fellows from MJHS and other institutions as well as oncology fellows from Memorial Sloan Kettering.
- The team provides robust training sessions each month about pediatric care to recruit and effectively train nurses to care for children with complex medical needs unable to be managed at home across New York State.
Your support and generosity to Louie’s fund is a part of this necessary and growing movement to bring awareness and education to medical staff and social workers so they can best support families in their most vulnerable moments.
In the last year, we have lost two pillars of our family, Emily’s father, Bob, and grandfather, Ed. We are grateful and would like to thank those of you who were able to make gifts to Louie’s fund in memory of them. Having you be a part of our community is something we do not take lightly or take for granted. For 2025, we hope you will join us and help sustain the momentum. A gift today to The Louis Arturo Rago Memorial Fund is an investment in quality, compassionate and critical care for other families in need of MJHS’s invaluable services and skills.
Thank you for celebrating Louie’s birthday with us.
Warmly,
Emily & Greg
