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The Edmond J. Safra Family Lodge at NIH

Overview

Referrals & Contacts

Public-Private Partnership

Background

Photos

NIH News Release
(May 24, 2005)

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Exterior photo of the Edmond J. Safra Family Lodge.

The Edmond J. Safra Family Lodge at NIH opened June 1, 2005.
It is located on Center Drive between Old Georgetown Road
and Convent Drive. View Map.
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Overview

Patients volunteer as partners in research here at the NIH Clinical Center because they recognize how important their participation is to better treatments and therapies for the future. The Safra Family Lodge will help keep families through what is often an extremely stressful time of illness, and our patients deserve that kind of support. - Dr. John I. Gallin, Director of the NIH Clinical Center

The Edmond J. Safra Family Lodge at NIH offers a home-like place of respite for families and loved ones of adult patients who are receiving care at the NIH Clinical Center, the nation's premier clinical research hospital. Patients from across the nation and throughout the world visit NIH to participate as partners in medical discovery. Often they are experiencing serious illness and undergoing intensive medical treatments. It's important and necessary for patient families and loved ones to be nearby during these difficult and often stressful times. The Safra Family Lodge provides a home away from home by providing space for solitude, family meetings and supportive fellowship.

The facility includes 34 guest rooms (most have two double beds), a library, a generously-equipped business and telecommuting center, a fitness center, a home-style kitchen, and comfortable social areas. There are two fully-equipped laundry rooms for guests to use.

Just steps away from the NIH Clinical Center, the Safra Family Lodge was designed as an early 1900 English Arts and Crafts manor. Surrounding gardens offer a spacious patio, quiet walking paths and serene seating areas.

 


Safra Family Lodge Referrals and Contacts

For more information on The Edmond J. Safra Family Lodge, including details on referrals and use of the facility, call 301-496-6500 or email cc-famlodge@cc.nih.gov. Lawrence Eldridge is executive director of the Safra Family Lodge.

Guests must be referred by the Institute/Center conducting the patient’s clinical research study.
In general, guests:

  • Must be a family member, caregiver, or loved one supporting an adult patient at the NIH Clinical Center. Under special circumstances, adult patients may be Lodge guests.
  • Must live more than 50 miles from the NIH campus in Bethesda, Maryland
  • Must be over 18 years of age (unless accompanied by an adult).
  • May stay up to 27 consecutive nights

Registration priority:
The following are the registration priority guidelines:

  1. Guests of inpatients in intensive care or who are receiving palliative or end-of-life care.

  2. Guests of inpatients who are undergoing inpatient surgery or who are admitted for a length of stay of equal to or greater than one week.

  3. Inpatients transitioning to home (and their guests).

  4. Outpatients receiving high intensity care, such as care in a day hospital or treatment greater than one week.

  5. Outpatients returning for normal follow-up visits.


A Public-Private Partnership

Edmond J. Safra
Edmond J. Safra

The Edmond J. Safra Family Lodge has been made possible through a remarkable public-private partnership. The Foundation for the National Institutes of Health, a private non-profit organization, received contributions to fund the facility’s construction.  Significant gifts from The Edmond J. Safra Philanthropic Foundation, as well as the Bristol-Myers Squibb Foundation, The Merck Company Foundation, GlaxoSmithKline, and many other generous individuals, corporations, and foundations have made the Safra Family Lodge a reality.

The Foundation for NIH hosted a ceremony marking the naming of the facility for Edmond J. Safra on April 17, 2002 , at the Russell Senate Office Building in Washington , D.C. Considered by many to have been the twentieth century’s greatest private banker, Safra quietly carried out many philanthropic activities. Rarely taking personal credit, he supported thousands of students, underwrote medical research, built and restored schools and synagogues as well as churches and mosques, endowed professorships and contributed to countless humanitarian, religious, educational and cultural causes.

After Safra’s tragic death, the Foundation and his wife Lily, who is a founding member of the Foundation and serves on its Council, supported many projects consistent with his vision. With the dedication of the Edmond J. Safra Family Lodge at NIH, The Edmond J. Safra Philanthropic Foundation carries forth Safra’s lifetime commitment to medical research and humanitarian causes.

A subsequent donation from the Safra Foundation funded design and construction of a healing garden named for Claudio and Evelyne Cohen and dedicated to the memory of Raphael Cohen.

Page last updated: May 22, 2008


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