Grady Gets $5 Million from Kaiser ATLANTA, GA (WABE) - Grady Health Systems today received a 5 million dollar gift from health care provider Kaiser Permanente of Georgia. The money will cover care for 1000 uninsured patients with chronic illnesses, and it will also purchase 10 new ambulances.

The $3 million designated for the uninsured is a drop in the bucket of the hundreds of millions that Grady loses each year in charity care.

But the $1.5 million for new ambulances is something that Grady EMS sorely needs. Many of its 35 trucks have more than 250,000 miles on them, and maintaining old ambulances is expensive.

BOTHWELL: So what you find is you get to a point where you're spending so much on ambulance repair. That money could be better spent on training, or personnel, or new medical equipment.

That's James Bothwell, head of Grady EMS.

The money won't help cover a $7 million cut that Grady EMS suffered in July, when Fulton County pulled its funding.

The Kaiser gift is the first in the second phase of a major Grady fundraising campaign that aims to raise $100 million.

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