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MediCorp wants to build a cancer center at Mary Washington Hospital Date published: 8/13/2009
BY JIM HALL MediCorp Health System hopes to convince the state Health Department that Fredericksburg needs a second cancer center, something it was unable to do earlier this year. The company has submitted an application to build a new center with advanced radiation therapy equipment on the campus of Mary Washington Hospital in Fredericksburg. The state rejected two similar proposals in January, when MediCorp suggested a cancer center at Stafford Hospital Center and HCA proposed one at its Spotsylvania Regional Medical Center, now under construction near Massaponax. Currently, MediCorp operates the area's only radiation treatment center, the Cancer Center of Virginia on State Route 3 in Spotsylvania County. But the company believes that growth there, combined with what it says is an elevated cancer rate in the region and the arrival of new cancer doctors, would make an additional center feasible. And this time, MWH officials concluded, they would place the service in Fredericksburg. "The thought was, let's put it close to where our specialists are," said Philip Brown, director of strategic planning. MediCorp would spend $11 million on the new center, to be financed from company reserves and with-out borrowing, according to its application. The center would be located at the traffic circle at the southern end of the hospital campus, off Cowan Boulevard. Plans call for the center to be attached to a building for women's services, now under construction there. Work on the cancer center could begin early next year and end about a year later, according to MediCorp's application. The center would open in summer 2011. MediCorp proposes to place a linear accelerator and a CT simulator there. Its offerings would include stereotactic radiosurgery, an advanced service primarily for patients with brain tumors. "Stereotactic radiosurgery is the piece that is critical for our area to have. That's the piece this area doesn't have access to now," Brown said. Currently, some local patients with brain tumors go to the University of Virginia Medical Center in Charlottesville for treatment. When the state rejected the two proposals in January, it said that the two linear accelerators at the Cancer Center were not busy enough to justify adding a third.
Should work on Improving the Service of The Hospital it already Has before They Add to the Program..... The Hospital Should Spend it's Efforts Improving general care before it steps up to
treating Cancer...With any Serious Illness most Local Folks seek Treatment either North or South of the Burg...
now that we have some hospital competition in the area
because unlike many other businesses where there is full
competition - the State of Va decides what facilities and
services can be built and by whom...and how many rather
than let the marketplace decide.
FOR INSTANCE - How does Virginia go about deciding
what can and cannot be built ... what's the process?
and how do other states do it?
could be a really good article but probably would take
some work.
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