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.
Each of the linear accelerators at the Cancer Center did 7,500 treatments in 2008, according to the company's application. The state wants a linear accelerator to do 8,000 procedures a year before it considers adding another.
"The volume issue is the main issue the state will try to address," Brown said.
In its application, MediCorp concedes that the numbers are not there to satisfy the current state requirement. But it argues that the demand will be there in 2011, when the new center is planned to open.
A majority of cancer patients receive radiation as a part of their therapy.
Patients usually visit a center dozens of times over several months to receive fractional doses of radiation directed at their tumors.
A public hearing on MediCorp's proposal is scheduled for later this month.
HCA is trying to compete with MediCorp and resubmit its application for a cancer center at the Spotsylvania hospital.
But the state rejected the resubmission as late. HCA is appealing that decision. A hearing is scheduled Sept. 21 in Richmond Circuit Court.
Jim Hall: 540/374-5433
Email: jhall@freelancestar.com