New London ― Lawrence + Memorial Hospital officials unveiled the hospital’s new Emergency Department waiting room Wednesday and also announced that the Fishers Island, N.Y. community has committed to raising $5 million to support the ongoing expansion and renovation of the department, a project begun in 2020.

The Peter O. Crisp family of Fishers Island “seeded” the fundraising campaign with a $2 million gift, Patrick Green, L+M’s president and chief executive officer, announced at an afternoon press conference outside the new waiting room. The campaign, chaired by Tracy and Jim Rutherfurd of Fishers Island and joined by more than 20 other Fishers Island families, already has raised more than $2.5 million, bringing the total raised to more than $4.5 million.

Green announced the Emergency Department will be designated as “Given by the Friends and Family of Fishers Island, and the Peter O. Crisp Family.”

Before touring the new facility, the 90-year-old Peter Crisp, his wife Missy and the Rutherfurds took part in a ribbon-cutting ceremony.

“We are tremendously thankful for the philanthropy of the Peter O. Crisp family, as well as to Tracy and Jimmy Rutherfurd and their committee, and to the residents of Fishers Island who have given so generously to our organization,” Green said. “This gift greatly enhances this project and our ability to enhance the care we provide to our patients.”

“The support of the Fishers Island community further solidifies that L+M and Yale New Haven Health are the trusted health partner for this community,” Green said.

Fishers Island, part of the town of Southold, N.Y., measures about four square miles and sits in Long Island Sound about two miles due south of Groton Long Point and about seven miles southeast of New London. Its year-round population of between 250 and 300 people swells to between 2,000 and 3,000 in the summer.

Residents of the island rely on L+M for emergency and other health care services through partnerships between L+M and the Island Health Project, the Fishers Island Fire Department and the Sea Stretcher aquatic ambulance service. In 1995, Fishers Island residents joined an earlier philanthropic effort aimed at boosting L+M’s emergency facilities.

Crisp, described by a Harvard Business School alumni publication as “a pioneering venture capitalist and philanthropist,” said L+M is “very important” to Fishers Island and serves the island “very well.”

“This is the right project at the right time,” he said.

Crisp graduated from Yale in 1955 and obtained an MBA at Harvard in 1960. An associate of the Rockefeller family for 45 years, he was a founder and managing general partner of Venrock Associates, a firm known for investing in such firms as Intel, Apple and American Superconductor. Crisp has long been active on Fishers Island, serving on the boards of the Fishers Island Development Corp. and other entities.

Dr. Craig Mittleman, L+M’s regional director of emergency medical services, led the tour of the new waiting room, which he called “a microcosm of what’s to come.” Work on the $84.5 million Emergency Department expansion project, which includes a major upgrade of the hospital’s power system, resumed early last year after being disrupted by the COVID-19 pandemic. The project is scheduled for completion in 2025.

Green, in his remarks at the press conference, referred to the waiting room as the first “tangible portion” of the project to be revealed to the public, noting that much work has been completed underground and at higher levels. Two new generators have been installed above the Emergency Department.

“Soon we will welcome our first patients to this bright, peaceful and calming space,” Green said. “When our patients open the doors behind me, they will be greeted with a sense of serenity that we hope is the beginning of their journey to recovery from whatever brings them to us.”

The expansion will add more than 11,000 square feet of space to the Emergency Department, which will comprise 57 private treatment rooms, a number of them dedicated to pediatric and behavioral health care.

During the tour, Mittleman called attention to a vertical triage area in which patients who arrive in an upright posture can remain seated while being evaluated; a stainless steel blanket warmer; and a pneumatic tube system for directing blood samples to such sites as the pharmacy, blood bank or microbiology department.

The waiting room is decorated with the work of local artists, including a striking, panoramic photograph of New London Harbor.

The new space leads into the hospital’s existing Emergency Department and old waiting room, which still are in use.

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