Located in Browns Mills, New Jersey, Deborah Heart and Lung Center is the only hospital in the region that focuses exclusively on cardiac, vascular, and lung disease using state-of-the-art technology and care. It has been named by Philadelphia Magazine as "the place to get the best cardiac care" and is ranked among the top hospitals in the country for patient satisfaction by independent research companies, national consumer magazines, and the federal government in its monitoring of healthcare organizations.
In cooperation with Deborah Hospital Foundation, the hospital's major fundraising organization, Deborah prides itself on never billing a patient for medical services rendered.
Deborah Heart and Lung Center has 139 beds with a full service ambulatory care center. In March 2010, Deborah Heart and Lung Center opened an emergency room operated by Lourdes Medical Center of Burlington County. The emergency department offers ambulances and walk-in patients convenient access to advanced emergency care.
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Dora Moness Shapiro established Deborah in 1922 as a tuberculosis sanitorium to provide care for those who could not afford it. Her motto was "There is no price tag on life!" Legend has it that Deborah's rural Burlington County location was the key to recovery because of its therapeutic Jersey Pine Barrens air. In reality, thousands of tuberculosis patients were medically treated and successfully cured by Deborah physicians.
In 1934, a woman named Clara Franks became a tuberculosis patient at Deborah. She was cured the next year. Following her discharge, she began to work for Deborah as a secretary and fundraising assistant. She began organizing community-based chapters to support Deborah, laying the foundation for the Deborah Hospital Foundation of today.
In the late 1940s, with the development of antibiotics, eradicating tuberculosis, Deborah began to shift emphasis to treating heart diseases. On July 28, 1958, pioneering heart surgeon Dr. Charles Bailey performed Deborah's first on-site heart surgery on three-year-old Bill DiMartino, followed by Dora Hansen, age 36.
In 1959, Deborah made an official name change to Deborah Hospital. In 1973, Deborah Hospital made another official name change to Deborah Heart and Lung Center, which still remains today.
Founded in 1974, Deborah Hospital Foundation is the fund raising arm of Deborah Heart and Lung Center. Their mission statement is to provide substantial funding to support the highest quality of patient care by Deborah Heart and Lung Center; to provide for treatment of children with congenital heart diseases in the United States and around the world; and to provide for clinical research for cardiac and pulmonary disease by fostering and maintaining the Foundation’s grassroots volunteer movement, its alliances with corporations, labor organizations, service organizations, foundations and others and by its initiation and enhancement of planned giving programs and other fundraising activities. In partnership with the Center, to heighten awareness of the name of Deborah and its unique healthcare and fundraising activities and to serve more people without distinction as to race, gender, sexual preference, creed, color, religion, age, national origin, handicap, or ability to pay.