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Medical Center Hospital to Build New Cancer Center

Posted on: Thursday, 14 July 2005, 09:01 CDT

Jul. 14--Medical Center Hospital will use $4.5 million from tobacco settlement funds to help complete a $5.7 million cancer treatment center at the hospital's main complex.

The center is slated to open in October 2006, some six years after MCH exited the business because of competition from the West Texas Cancer Center.

Texas Oncology P.A., which operates the West Texas Cancer Center, will lease the new center from the hospital, MCH Chief Executive William Webster said at a news conference Tuesday.

Texas Oncology, a subsidiary of Houston-based U.S. Oncology, is the largest private oncology practice in the United States, according to the company's Web site.

Texas Oncology will close the West Texas Cancer Center, located six blocks east of the hospital at 606 N. Grant Ave., Webster said.

The announcement prompted an angry reaction from Roy Allen, vice president of ICA Properties Inc. of Odessa, which leases the cancer center building to Texas Oncology.

"Our question is, 'What the heck is going on?' " Allen said. "There is no need for the public to bear the brunt of a $6 million bricks-and-mortar facility. That money -- should be spent on cancer and indigent care."

Webster said the hospital will pay for the center using current and future tobacco settlement funds totaling an estimated $4.5 million.

"For a number of years, we've been saving this money for this goal," Webster told a group of about 40 physicians, nurses, staff, board members and others in the trustees' boardroom.

The hospital will also tap $1.22 million from operations and reserves to build the facility, he said.

Allen Weikel, executive director of the West Texas region for Texas Oncology/U.S. Oncology, said the company will invest $4.5 million in state-of-the-art treatment technologies, equipment, oncologists and support staff to operate the center.

In his remarks, Webster said the resumption of on-site cancer care is part of Medical Center's "long-standing commitment to cancer services."

He said having a cancer-treatment center at the hospital will be more convenient for patients staying in the hospital and for out-patients. An on-site facility will ensure the safety of in-patients by eliminating ambulance rides to the existing center, he said. In addition, a range of emergency services will be available to both types of patients receiving treatment should any problem arise during them, he said.

"There are benefits going both ways," Webster said.

After Webster's presentation, Allen, said he strongly opposes the hospital's plans, adding that he doesn't see how Medical Center can justify spending more than $5 million for the facility after recording a $17.3 million deficit last year.

Allen said ICA's attempts to renegotiate a lease agreement with Texas Oncology by offering it more room in the adjacent ICA-owned American Bank Building proved fruitless even after U.S. Oncology officials told ICA they wanted the center to remain in the core downtown area.

Weikel said Texas Oncology believes equipment at the existing center is too old and that "the state of the art of cancer treatment" has progressed and we need to progress with it."

The new oncology center will increase hospital revenues and be a stable future profit source, Webster said. He offered no future revenue estimates during his presentation.

Webster said he expects demand for cancer services to increase 23 percent in the next decade.

Webster said the hospital began discussing ways to provide improved cancer services in West Texas with Texas Oncology and its parent, U.S. Oncology of Houston, five years ago -- about the same time the hospital closed its on-campus oncology center for economic reasons.

The West Texas Cancer Center -- which opened in 1994, one year after MCH opened its own -- competed with Medical Center, he said.

"It was not economically viable to operate two cancer treatment centers" in Odessa, Webster said.

The new MCH oncology center will provide state-of-the-art care to 90 to 95 percent of cancer patients in Odessa, Weikel said. Care will be on par with that offered in Dallas and Houston, he said.

Larry Johnson, a partner in Johnson Seefeldt Architects of Odessa, said the new center will be located in the 300 block of North Washington Avenue and will connect MCH's vacant oncology center and its admissions and diagnostics wing. Johnson Seefeldt is the project architect.

A groundbreaking is scheduled in September.

Webster said the hospital plans to buy a portion of North Washington Avenue to improve patient access to the center's front doors.

Weikel said Odessa will need advanced cancer care, as surveys indicate an "explosion of incidents of cancer" as baby boomers begin to contract any of 300 types of cancer.

"We need to be ready to meet" that need, Weikel said.

Frank Scarmardo, director of the West Texas Cancer Center and the Allison Cancer Center in Midland, said the Odessa facility treated about 60 new cancer patients in 2004, which "translates into thousands of patient visits."

Tony Ruiz, MCH associate administrator, said the existing center treats about 38 percent of newly diagnosed cancer cases in 30 West Texas counties.

Dr. Joseph Kaczor, medical director of cancer services at MCH and radiation oncologist for the West Texas Cancer Center, said the new cancer-treatment center will provide valuable services to cancer patients, their family and friends and to the community as a whole.

"The new center will offer the same treatments (patients) can get at Dallas -- at Baylor -- and Houston -- at M.D. Anderson," Kaczor said.

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Copyright (c) 2005, Odessa American, Texas

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Source: Odessa American

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