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Kirk Douglas and his wife gift hospital $2.3 million for new robot

Movie icon and philanthropist Kirk Douglas and his wife Anne have pledged $2.3 million (GBP1.5 million) to Children’s Hospital Los Angeles, so bosses can buy a new robot. The funding will be used for the purchase of a da Vinci robot for the hospital’s division of paediatric urology, while some of the cash will support the training of physicians using the new hi-tech device on young children with urological problems.
In an interview with The Hollywood Reporter, Spartacus star Douglas says, “The bottom line is that it’s a great help for children. With this new machine, we will be one of the only hospitals on the West Coast to help children in this way… Before, there were areas that needed to be reached during an operation that they (surgeons) couldn’t get to.
“This is the first time we are gifting a complicated machine. We don’t know how robotic surgery works, but we know that they need it for children. This is the first time we’ve given a machine that we don’t know what it does, but the doctors are pleased with it. We’re giving something that is very useful, and that feels good.”
His wife Anne adds, “This is all, for me, outer space. I don’t understand how it works. But if it’s that important and they need it so badly and they have wanted it for a while, so be it.”

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