Woodruff Foundation may be Atlanta hospital’s big benefactor

The Robert W. Woodruff Foundation has emerged as the most probable source of a $200 million bailout for Atlanta's Grady Memorial Hospital. The Foundation, with assets of $2.7 billion, is Atlanta's most influential charitable foundation. The identity of the donor has been a mystery since summer 2007, when representatives of the Metro Atlanta Chamber of Commerce announced that an anonymous donor was willing to provide a major amount of money to save the foundering hospital. The hospital has fallen increasingly into debt because of rising healthcare costs, dwindling government aid, a lack of paying customers, and years of neglect.