The Machias-based Down East Community Hospital raised $250,000 on the first day of its $1.5 million capital campaign on Friday.
Machias Savings Bank was behind the donation, which, along with a $4 million federal loan that was received in November, will go toward expanding the emergency room and adding trauma and psychiatric rooms, according to the Bangor Daily News.
Down East Community Hospital is currently the only hospital within a 60-mile radius of Machias and annually treats 9,000 patients, well above the originally intended capacity when the hospital was built over 50 years ago.
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