The Camp Pendleton Fisher House will be 8,000 square feet and include 8 private suites for the families of ill and injured troops receiving care at Camp Pendleton Naval Hospital. (Photo courtesy the Fisher House Foundation.)
The Camp Pendleton Fisher House will be 8,000 square feet and include 8 private suites for the families of ill and injured troops receiving care at Camp Pendleton Naval Hospital. (Photo courtesy the Fisher House Foundation.)
Derek Donovan, Fisher House Foundation vice president for programs and community relations; Capt. Mark Kobelja, commander of the Camp Pendleton Naval Hospital; Brig. Gen. Joaquin Malavet, deputy commander of I Marine Expeditionary Force; and John Mateczun, president of UnitedHealthcare Military & Veterans, ceremonially break ground on a Fisher House at Camp Pendleton, Calif., on Tuesday. (Jennifer Hlad/Stars and Stripes)
Officials broke ground Tuesday on a Fisher House at Camp Pendleton, Calif. The United Health Foundation donated $2.65 million for the 8,000-square foot, eight-suite facility. (Jennifer Hlad?/Stars and Stripes)
CAMP PENDLETON, Calif. — When then-Marines Commandant Gen. James Amos dedicated the Fisher House at Naval Hospital Camp Lejeune, he thanked the Fisher House Foundation but said the work wasn’t finished.
“You know, we’re going to need one of these at Camp Pendleton,” Amos said, according to Derek Donovan, vice president of programs and community relations for the Fisher House Foundation.
Nearly four years later, officials broke ground Tuesday on what will be the second Fisher House on a Marine Corps base.
Fisher Houses provide free temporary lodging for families of injured and ill troops and veterans so parents, children and spouses can stay nearby while their loved ones receive treatment.
Family support is an “absolutely essential ingredient” in the healing process, said Brig. Gen. Joaquin Malavet, deputy commander of I Marine Expeditionary Force.
“We are building a foundation,” he said, of a place to “foster unity and health.”
The first Fisher Houses opened in 1991, at the National Naval Medical Center in Bethesda, Md., and Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington. The first one in southern California opened in 1992, at San Diego Naval Medical Center, which got a second in 2008.
The Pendleton facility will be the 65th Fisher House but the first to be paid for by just one sponsor, with a $2.65 million donation from the United Health Foundation — established by UnitedHealthcare, the contractor that administers healthcare for Tricare’s West Region.
The completed facility will be roughly 8,000 square feet and include eight suites. Officials said they expect it to serve more than 280 families each year.
Though Fisher Houses have come to be associated with troops wounded in Iraq and Afghanistan, this facility is more likely to serve families of Marines who get injured or fall ill in southern California.
The Camp Pendleton Naval Hospital routinely has two or three patients in the intensive care unit, hosts several surgeries each day and delivers dozens of babies each month, said Navy Capt. Mark Kobelja, the hospital’s commander.
Marine recruits and troops stationed 165 miles away at the Naval Surface Warfare Center Port Hueneme, or 220 miles away at Marine Corps Air Station Yuma, Ariz., also receive care at Pendleton, Kobelja said.
Twitter: @jhlad
