Washington, DC – The Hungarian American Coalition approved a grant in the amount of $525,000 for the reconstruction of a lecture hall at the First Department of Medicine of the Semmelweis University in Budapest.
The grant is made possible by a generous donation from the Charles Simonyi Foundation for the Arts and Sciences. The grant recipient is the Foundation for the Onco-Haematological Patients, which functions at the Semmelweis University.
Semmelweis University has a more than 230-year old tradition of academic excellence and commitment to the education of physicians. Current enrollment at the Faculty of Medicine is 2907 students. English-language medical training is offered to 837 students in three specialties. The associated University Hospitals have 2800 beds and admit about 112,000 patients annually, while the outpatient departments care for approximately 2.1 million patients each year.
The Simonyi Fund grant will be used to rebuild the University’s lecture hall, which is now over 100 years old. The lecture hall, which was considered very modern at the beginning of the 20th century, is now in hazardous condition. Its windows, stairs, and benches have never been renovated, yet the hall has been in continuous use. Thus, the auditorium has reached the final limits of its performance and is long overdue for renovation.
The project will be completed by November 15, 2010.