WOMEN’S HEALTH SERVICES ADVANCED

Stamford Health recently announced that it will expand access to women”™s health services throughout lower Fairfield County through two significant community grants and the addition of six new physicians. Simultaneously, ongoing renovation of the Whittingham Pavilion at Stamford Hospital on the Bennett Medical Center Campus, which houses all mother baby services, a new Stamford Health Medical Group location in Harbor Point opening in 2024 and the relocation and transformation of Stamford Health”™s Breast Center will further differentiate Stamford Health as a destination for women and families in the community.  

 Two significant grants will expand access to preventive care for patients in the community. The first, a grant from the Connecticut Health and Educational Facilities Authority (CHEFA), funds a Community Health Worker Program focused on serving Stamford”™s Haitian community.  Diana Dupey-Faustin, MHA, has joined Stamford Health as its first bilingual community health worker and she will help patients navigate the health system and educate them on the importance of screenings and prevention. 

 The second grant, from Fairfield County Community Foundation Fund for Women and Girls is a renewal to fund breast services such as mammograms, breast ultrasounds, breast MRI and biopsies for underinsured and uninsured patients. Other grants from the Breast Cancer Alliance, Pink Aid, Leon Lowenstein Foundation, Boehringer Ingleheim, and Stamford Ford are helping to reduce health-care disparities and bring services to women in the community who could otherwise not afford them. 

To expand access to care for women at Stamford Health, the health system made a series of strategic appointments, including 

 Siobhan Dolan, M.D., MPH, MBA has joined Stamford Health as chair of Ob-Gyn. She was most recently vice chair of genetics and genomics in the Department of Obstetrics, Gynecology and Reproductive Science at Mount Sinai”™s Icahn School of Medicine. 

 Swapna Ghanta, M.D., joins Stamford Health as Associate Breast Surgeon from NYU Langone Health where she served as breast surgical oncologist. Ghanta works with the award-winning Breast Center team at the Tully Health Center to provide surgical care to individuals with breast cancer. 

Lyudmila B. Ganatra, DO, joins Stamford Health as an attending physician in Ob-Gyn after finishing her Ob-Gyn residency at Richmond University Medical Center. 

 Theresa Mahon, M.D., and Nikko Dunlevy, M.D., both joined Stamford Health as hospitalists providing an elevated level of care to women and birthing people in labor and delivery, maternity and the emergency department, providing 24/7 physician coverage for patients at Stamford Hospital. And, Luciana Veira, M.D., maternal fetal medicine specialist, will expand the system”™s capacity to care for high-risk patients in the Women”™s Specialty Center.

 On the Bennett Medical Center Campus, a newly renovated Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU) in large part funded by a philanthropic commitment of $5 million from the Steven and Alexandra Cohen Foundation is completed, and the Whittingham Pavilion construction on the maternity unit and subsequent renovations will include updates to the labor and delivery unit, which will include adding a new operating room ”“ all increasing Stamford Health capabilities. Additionally, a new outpatient Ob-Gyn location at 170 Washington Blvd. in Stamford”™s Harbor Point neighborhood will open in 2024 and a philanthropic commitment of $10 million from the Odyssey Group Foundation will go directly toward a relocation and total transformation of Stamford Health”™s Breast Center at the Tully Health Center.

 Stamford Health is a nonprofit independent health-care system with more than 3,800 employees committed to caring for the community through a wide range of health and wellness services. It is a major teaching affiliate of the Columbia University Vagelos College of Physicians and Surgeons and has recently expanded its relationship with Columbia to offer treatment and expertise from Columbia University Irving Medical Center”™s nationally recognized heart surgeons and with the Hospital for Special Surgery it has created a center for specialty orthopedic care in Stamford. In 2020 Stamford Health”™s Carl & Dorothy Bennett Cancer Center entered into an expanded collaboration with Dana-Farber Brigham Cancer Center.