One out of five cancer patients leaves Lackawanna County for care.
That's according to officials at Geisinger Health System. To help provide patients with the comfort of home while they’re receiving treatment, Geisinger broke ground Tuesday on a new cancer center in Dickson City.
"Staying closer to home allows for healing and allows for that coordinated care that ... all of these people really need," said Renee Blakiewicz, the Associate Vice President of Clinical Operations in Geisinger’s Northeast Region. "It's scary traveling out of the area, to places that you don't know or not familiar with.”
Geisinger and Dickson City officials gathered under white tents outside of where the $58 million dollar cancer center will be built at 705 Martin F. Gibbons Boulevard in the borough. After comments, the representatives dug multi-colored shovels into a box of confetti. They hoisted the filled shovels into the air. The rainbow confetti fell around them to mark the center's groundbreaking.
Dr. Rajiv Panikkar, the chair of Geisinger’s Cancer Institute, spoke during the ceremony.
“The opportunity of having a building like what's going to come up behind me is incredible because cancer touches all of our lives… All of us, whether it's a neighbor, a friend or a loved one, we see it and we feel it. And what we have that's going to come up behind us is an opportunity to have a space that was designed with our patients and their families in mind," he said.
Geisinger is expecting a 3.2% increase in cancer diagnoses over the next four years, said Blakiewicz. A 12% increase in people ages 65 and older is expected by 2027.
At the new 55,000 square-foot center, Geisinger will be able to more than double the amount of patients they’re seeing now at Geisinger Community Medical Center.
The hospital in Scranton's Henry Cancer Center has six exam rooms and 11 infusion bays. The new center will feature 17 exam rooms and 22 infusion bays.
The center will have radiation oncology, which is not offered in Scranton, as well as palliative care. There will be rooms to meet with surgeons, a pharmacy and laboratory services.
“It's multidisciplinary, everybody's in the same spot, patients aren't going to have to go all over the place to talk to folks," said Blakiewicz. "The doctors will have the ability to collaborate and talk to one another, and plan out the care together, which is just a tremendous opportunity.”
Dickson City Council President Jeffrey Kovaleski said he is extremely happy that Geisinger chose the borough for the facility.
"They've been great to work with the entire time and we're just looking forward to all the different things that are gonna come," he said.
Construction will begin later this summer.
