Recognizing that providing compassionate care is a key hospital goal, Nantucket Cottage Hospital established an  annual prize honoring a staff member for extraordinarily compassionate care.

The Seinfeld/Hartmann Prize for Compassionate Medical Care will pay lasting tribute to a physician, nurse or any other hospital staff member who throughout his or her professional career demonstrates an outstanding level of compassion and care in their role at NCH.

The Seinfeld/Hartmann Prize for Compassionate Medical Care, a cash award, will be given each year at the NCH Annual Meeting in August, and the winner will be announced to the hospital and the island community at-large.

Nominations can be initiated by any patient or staff member who witnessed an act of compassion by an NCH employee. Learn more and nominate a caregiver by clicking here or call 508-825-8250. Nominations are due by July 31, 2020.

(May 11, 2020) Today was supposed to be Opening Day 2020 at the Hospital Thrift Shop, but there is no line on India Street today! It’s a sad day and we are missing the opening day tradition and seeing all of you. A special shoutout to all our loyal volunteers, shoppers, and donors. Although Opening Day 2020 had to be postponed, stay tuned for updates. After 90 years in business, the Hospital Thrift Shop will adapt and will continue to serve the Nantucket community moving forward. With your patience and support, we are looking forward to our 91st year in business. Keep up-to-date with the Thrift Shop by visiting HospitalThriftShop.org

(April 22, 2020) The Boston Pops on Nantucket is a beloved tradition for the island community that brings so many people together and is a critical source of support for Nantucket Cottage Hospital.

After careful consideration and with public health as our top priority, Nantucket Cottage Hospital has made the decision that we will not be able to gather on Jetties Beach for the 2020 Boston Pops on Nantucket as originally planned this August due to the precautions like physical distancing that are imperative to limit the spread of the coronavirus.

So while we already know this year will not look like the Pops concerts of years past, it’s important that we don’t give up on this wonderful event. Extraordinary times offer us an extraordinary opportunity to celebrate the heart of Nantucket.

Nantucket Cottage Hospital will reimagine the Boston Pops on Nantucket in 2020 and deliver a special experience that celebrates the hospital, our brave healthcare workers, first responders, and essential workers across the island. The event will still bring our community and the hospital’s steadfast supporters together virtually, in way that complies with the best practices we have learned for keeping our island healthy.

“In keeping with the tradition of the Boston Pops on Nantucket, our objective for this year’s reimagined event is to make the evening accessible and fun for all islanders in appreciation for the caring and concern the whole community demonstrated in protecting and helping our neighbors,” said Courtney O’Neill, Vice President of Community Relations and Development at Nantucket Cottage Hospital.

Nantucket Cottage Hospital will share these plans with the community as soon as possible, and will provide further details as we secure commitments from the talent that will be involved and structure a truly enjoyable experience for all islanders.

More than ever, the hospital needs to rally the support of the community to help fund its operations, so we are asking our supporters to continue their generous commitments and to consider participating as sponsors of this reimagined special event. The funds raised will allow us to continue to respond to this unparalleled challenge in the most effective way possible, and help our hospital emerge with the financial foundation and professional staffing capability we need to continue to provide excellent care for all.

Nantucket Cottage Hospital is not only an integral part of the island community, but it is an equally integral part of our family as well. As a family of six, we have frequented the ER for stitches, fevers and other mishaps that accompany a family with four boys, always receiving attentive and comprehensive care. But the hospital hasn’t just been there for our family during tragic events or unfortunate circumstances. It has served as the “home away from home” where we gave birth and welcomed three of our four children into the world, most recently our son Charles on January 10, 2020. It is these life changing moments for which we feel forever connected and grateful to our community hospital.

While nothing can fully prepare a family for the life changing experience that bringing a new baby into the world will be, the process can be a positive one or not. Our experience, most recently, was nothing short of perfect.

We had a pretty good idea of what to expect, this being our third child in three years. What we could not have planned for however, was the tremendous care our family received by the nursing staff and just how much they would contribute to our overall experience.

We arrived on a Friday morning and were warmly welcomed. It felt as though the whole nursing staff was anticipating our arrival, ready and eager to get the process started. How grateful we were to have such individualized attention, knowing that is not the norm in most all other hospitals. They embraced our desire for a holistic, natural birth. Whether through maintaining the set environment through dimmed lighting and quiet music, or providing birthing balls at various stages or encouraging walking the halls and trying new laboring positions. They respected our wishes the entire way.

– Kathleen and Isaiah Stover with their kids Gabe, J.J., Xander and Finn

On July 8, 2017, as we were celebrating our son’s 3rd birthday, a freak accident resulted in head trauma and left him non-responsive with his eyes rolled back in his head. Due to our proximity to the hospital, we decided not to wait for 911 to come to us and we got to the Nantucket Cottage Hospital emergency department before its staff could be notified of our arrival.

With no warning we burst in with an undoubtedly overwhelming situation and put our son’s life and family’s future in the hands of strangers. The flurry of activity that surrounded our son was terrifying at the time, but we can now look back on it in a different light.

The professionalism and expert care that he received is something the Nantucket Cottage Hospital staff should be extremely proud of. Not only was the medical care our son received critical to saving his life, but the kindness and support we received as parents was incredible. Beyond that care and comfort, the NCH staff was also exemplary in communicating and coordinating the complex logistics of a transfer by Coast Guard helicopter to Boston Children’s Hospital for emergency brain surgery.

Explaining to us what was going on, handling and explaining the dynamic travel situation to us, and just the overall focus of everyone on protecting my family is something we greatly appreciate. It took two ambulance rides and a Coast Guard helicopter to get our son, myself and my wife, who was eight-months pregnant, to Boston Children’s Hospital, where our son would need lifesaving surgery to relieve the swelling on his brain. We are extremely grateful to Nantucket firefighters Jeff Allen, Chris Holland and Scott Holmes for the safe transport to the waiting Coast Guard helicopter at Nantucket Memorial Airport. With serious thunderstorms throughout the area, Lt. Bill Burwell, Lt. Steven Podmore, AET3 Dan Cote and Petty Officer First Class Justin Munk came to our rescue and got us safely to Boston when we had no other options. The call these men answered that day leaves us forever grateful.

During this ordeal we watched Nantucket Cottage Hospital nurses Courtney Bucholz, Dani Brunelle and (CRNA) Peter Duquette work tirelessly to keep my son stable. We will never forget watching Courtney literally breathing the life into him and Dani’s intense focus on his vitals and well-being. As we were told by our son’s neurosurgeon in Boston, it was the immediate actions by the Nantucket Cottage Hospital emergency department team that were critical in saving his life and amazingly avoiding any long-term brain damage.

To the incredible staff at Boston Children’s and the entire trauma, ICU and neurology teams that helped us and kept us informed during this terrifying time, we cannot thank you enough for your hard work, especially Dr. Scellig Stone and his entire neurology team for their lifesaving effort. Boston Children’s Hospital is an amazing place filled with amazing people that I hope to never visit again, but am more than lucky to know that it is there.

To use the word lifesaving is not solely referring to the life of my son, but the lives of myself, wife, daughter and entire extended family. The tragedy that these people helped us avoid that day is something that is hard to think about, and has even more so enforced the ideal of how special every day with the people you care about is. We would like to thank everyone who helped us that day for every decision they made in their lives that led them to cross our path that day.

We are forever grateful and know that every smile, laugh and special moment from here on is due to the efforts of the many people who worked together to care for our son on that day.

– Ryan and Cara Scotto