Honoring Leon Haley: UF Health Jacksonville’s new trauma center
UF Health Jacksonville commemorates its late CEO Leon Haley Jr. with a new $90 million Emergency and Trauma Center.
(This story was updated to reflect new information and to add video).
After the July 2021 death of UF Health Jacksonville CEO Leon Haley, a group of his friends took a fishing trip to Key West.
Those six friends, heavy hitters all, pondered over dinner how best to honor Haley, who was killed when he was ejected from a personal watercraft in Palm Beach Inlet. They settled on one of Haley’s wishes for the hospital he led — a new trauma center.
The group lobbied legislators and city leaders for funding and on Thursday, three years after that fishing trip, a groundbreaking will take place for UF Health Jacksonville’s $90 million Leon L. Haley Jr., MD, Emergency and Trauma Center.
First Coast YMCA CEO Eric Mann was on the trip with former Jacksonville Mayor John Delaney, former Jacksonville City General Counsel and Rogers Towers partner Fred Franklin, lobbyist Marty Fiorentino, JAX USA President Aundra Wallace, Stellar construction’s Mike Santarone and Richard Lovelace and Jacksonville Jaguars executive Drew Frick. Mann said Haley would “be humbled and grateful to his friends who helped make this happen on his behalf.””It’s a visual representation of his vision and passion to have the best of care for people of Northwest Jacksonville community,” Mann said. “He had a way of bringing all people together for good including his vision for quality health care for all.”
Haley would be touched by the project’s origins, Fiorentino said.
“He would be smiling down from heaven with a chuckle. … a fitting tribute to a man who dedicated his life to medicine, particularly trauma services. He made a such an impact in Jacksonville in such a short period of time,” Fiorentino said.
The new facility will add 35,000 square feet and renovate the existing emergency trauma space at UF Health Jacksonville. The Eighth Street hospital is the only one in the region designated as a Level 1 trauma center, the highest level.
The current trauma center/emergency room dates back to the 1960s. A remodel was part of Haley’s long-term capital strategy for the hospital; the project in his name is expected to be complete by April 2027.
Trained as an emergency room physician, he led by example and was the first person in Jacksonville to receive the Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine when it became available. Shortly before his death, Haley visited every unit at UF Health Jacksonville, personally administering the vaccine doses to staff, according to the hospital.
He first joined UF Health Jacksonville as dean of the University of Florida College of Medicine-Jacksonville in January 2017. He was named the hospital’s first Black CEO a year later.
After his death, Haley was lauded across the country, but particularly in Jacksonville. City and community leaders noted his leading role in the COVID-19 response, and staff and colleagues praised him for his approachable manner, as a physician who put the welfare of patients and the community first.
“His vision encompassed expanding across Northeast Florida and Southeast Georgia in order to treat more patients and improve health throughout the community,” according to a UF Health Jacksonville report. “He was passionate about eliminating health disparities and drove many efforts to help achieve health equity. He not only led the organization during one of the most challenging times due to the pandemic, but he was also focused on fostering a positive work environment and left a lasting impression on everyone he met. He was an inspirational leader, one who is truly unforgettable.”
In April 2022, Gov. Ron DeSantis announced $80 million in state funding for the project, the single-largest appropriation for Northeast Florida. The city of Jacksonville later added another $10 million.
“This project honors Leon Haley … for his enormous contributions to UF Health Jacksonville and the greater Jacksonville community,” said another friend Russ Armistead, an earlier CEO at the hospital. “Dr. Haley never sought credit and worked tirelessly to make healthcare better and available for everyone. His energy was contagious. He made everyone want to be better. We all wanted to do something big and permanent to honor Dr. Haley for all he did for us.”
In 2021, UF Health Jacksonville’s brain wellness program also was named after Haley.
bcravey@jacksonville.com, (904) 359-4109
