[Congressional Record Volume 166, Number 140 (Thursday, August 6, 2020)]
[Senate]
[Pages S5262-S5263]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                       TRIBUTE TO DR. BABU PRASAD

  Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, in 1971, a young doctor named Babu Prasad 
boarded a plane in his native India, headed for America. He was 24 
years old and 1 year out of medical school. His first stop was Canton, 
OH where he worked for a short while before moving to Chicago to 
complete a residency in anesthesiology at the University of Illinois-
Chicago.
  He spent the following decade practicing medicine in Alabama before 
returning to Illinois, this time to the Springfield area, where he 
spent the next 18 years practicing anesthesiology at HSHS St. John's 
Hospital before retiring in 2004.
  Two weeks ago, this doctor who arrived in America as a young man with 
no money announced that he was donating $1 million to HSHS St. John's 
to support a major expansion of the hospital's neonatal intensive care 
unit. An article in The State Journal-Register, Springfield's hometown 
newspaper, called Dr. Prasad's gift his ``love letter to the hospital 
and community.''
  At a press conference announcing his donation, Dr. Prasad said 
simply: ``I want to give back to a country that has given so much to my 
family and me.''
  ``Children are our future, so I wanted to direct by gift to the 
neonatal intensive care unit, to give the babies a healthy start in 
life,'' said Dr. Prasad.

[[Page S5263]]

  Dr. Prasad and his wife, Dr. Sudah Prasad, an immunologist, have been 
quiet and consistent donors to St. John's NICU over the years. Their 
latest gift of $1 million will support a major expansion of St. John's 
neonatal intensive care unit. The expansion, expected to be finished in 
February, will more than double the size of the current NICU and 
provide single-family patient rooms for premature and critically ill 
infants.
  As a father whose first baby came into this world with serious health 
challenges, I have a sense of what such supportive accommodations will 
mean to families of sick and fragile babies, and I am grateful to Dr. 
Prasad for his generous support of this worthy cause.
  St. John's was one of the first hospitals in Illinois to establish a 
NICU for premature and critically ill infants. Each year, about 2,00 
babies are born at St. John's, and about 700 babies from 35 Illinois 
counties receive care in the hospital's NICU.
  In announcing Dr. Prasad's donation, Beverly Neisler, chief 
development officer for the HSHS St. John's Foundation said, ``Dr. 
Prasad's gift is a beautiful testament as to who he is as a person. He 
is a generous and kind man who has built a successful life through hard 
work, dedication and determination. He means so much to us.''
  ``A golden opportunity'' is how Dr. Prasad remembers his chance to 
come to America nearly a half-century ago. ``It felt like heaven,'' he 
says, nothing like India in the 1970s. At 24, he had never before seen 
TV.
  Nearly 50 years later, Dr. Prasad is a father of three and 
grandfather of six. Two of his daughters have followed him into the 
medical profession. Dr. Prasad himself continues to practice 
anesthesiology and pain management 2 weeks each month at a private 
medical practice in the Springfield area.
  The current COVID crisis reminds us daily how much we depend on the 
skills and sacrifices of fronteline medical workers and how many of 
those medical workers are, like Dr. Prasad, immigrants. We are 
fortunate and we are safer and healthier because they have chosen to 
make America their home. On behalf of the families of Illinois, I want 
to thank Dr. Prasad again for keeping two generations of Illinoisans 
healthy and for his generous gift to future generations.

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