The Clyde F. Barker Transplant House

A Haven of Comfort and Community for Patients and Families

For patients and their families, the Clyde F. Barker Transplant House at Penn will help ease the unique economic and emotional burdens that accompany organ transplantation. The House will provide comfortable accommodations and convenient services, in a supportive, community setting, at nominal cost.

By raising just $2 million, we can make this haven a reality – and eager contributors have already made substantial progress toward this goal.

Organ Transplantation Affects the Whole Family
Organ transplantation is one of medicine’s true miracles, and no one does it better than Penn. But because of the scarcity of healthy donor organs, transplant candidates often wait years for a compatible heart, lung, kidney, pancreas, or liver.

Growing sicker and weaker, many become too disabled to work, so that spouses and family members become round-the-clock caregivers and the family’s sole means of support.

The transplant process offers patient and family hope after years of emotional stress, but brings with it new expenses:

• Pre-transplant evaluation can take several days – and patients must be accompanied by a caregiver.
• The transplant itself may require a few weeks in the hospital.
• Organ recipients must return to HUP repeatedly – up to 50 times in the first two years alone – for follow-up care.
• A third of our patients come from more than 50 miles away – some as far as New England, the Carolinas, Ohio, and beyond.

This adds up to a mountain of non-reimbursable hotel and meal expenses -- when emotions and finances are already stretched nearly to breaking. The Transplant House will help ease both emotional and economic stresses for these families.

The Barker Transplant House at Penn: Easing Stress, Creating Community
The Transplant House will be located near the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania, staffed 24/7, and designed to meet the unique needs of transplant patients and families, with:

• rooms furnished with two double beds
• computers and Internet access
• kitchen facilities and laundry room
• continuously running shuttle to the hospital
• telephone liaison to the transplant floor, to let families know when patients are ready for visitors
• comprehensive education center, with meeting space for support groups

“The support of other people who are going through the transplant experience is incredibly valuable,” says Richard Leighton, a liver transplant recipient, who chairs the Transplant House Committee. “This is a condition you have for the rest of your life. We have people who have been coming to the post-transplant clinic support group for many years after their surgery. They reach out to new patients, and make themselves available by phone or email, but with the Transplant House so much more can be done.”

Naming Opportunities Within the Transplant House
Consider a permanent method of honoring a family member, a physician or nurse, an organ donor, or making a gift in memory of a special person with a naming opportunity in The House.

Naming opportunities begin at $500, and are often established through a multi-year commitment.

Making a Gift to The Barker Transplant House at Penn
Gifts can be made in the form of cash or checks, credit card, or appreciated securities. You can make a gift online using a credit card.

For more information, or to consider additional gift options including planned gifts, please contact:

Roger Reina, Senior Major Gifts Officer
Phone: (215) 898-0578
Email: rreina@ben.dev.upenn.edu

Contributions are tax deductible. Please make checks payable to The Trustees of the University of Pennsylvania.

Mail to:

Penn Medicine Development and Alumni Relations
The Transplant House
3535 Market Street - Suite 750
Philadelphia, PA 19104

	Need an appointment? Request one online 24 hours/day, 7 days/week or call 800-789-PENN (7366) to speak to a referral counselor.

Find a Specialist at the Penn Transplant Institute:

	-	Heart Transplant
	-	Kidney/Pancreas Transplant
	-	Liver Transplant
	-	Lung Transplant