“Don’t take your organs to heaven heaven knows we need them here.”
This phrase, commonly used by organ donation advocates, stuck with Donnetta Quarles-Reese when she first saw it on bumper stickers and license plates in her youth. It would stay with her in the decades that followed, when she agreed to donate the organs of her daughter Clarke Danielle and her husband Charles Michael after their deaths in 2007 and 2017, respectively.
Despite its many accomplishments and well-earned, top-tier hospital/patient care prestige, it is something that VCU Health did not do that has received attention lately. Earlier this year, VCU Health ended its participation in a development known as the Clay Street Project at the site of the old public safety building in downtown Richmond. Originally approved by the VCU Health Board of Directors in 2021, the project was fatally impacted — in the wake of the pandemic — by a nationwide collapse of demand for office space, soaring inflation, and dramatic interest rate increases. We and our colleagues on the Board of Visitors support the decision — one that came with costs but was clearly right for the long-term trajectory of the health system.