In about a year and a half, North St. Louis County will have a new $26.6 million Siteman Cancer Center outpatient facility located next to Northwest HealthCare on Graham Road in Florissant. BJC HealthCare, Siteman and Christian Hospital broke ground at the site on Tuesday, July 31.
The facility is a joint project of BJC HealthCare, which owns and operates Christian Hospital, and Washington University School of Medicine, whose physicians treat Siteman patients. The Northwest HealthCare campus is six miles west of Christian Hospital, where Siteman opened its fifth outpatient site at an existing building in July 2017 as an interim location until the build is completed.
“Christian Hospital has served as an anchor in the community for more than 100 years, and now to be another home for a Siteman Cancer Center,” said Lee Fetter, group president for BJC HealthCare. “BJC has been here through Christian Hospital, not only as a healthcare provider, but as an employer and, most importantly, as a neighbor.”
During the ceremony, Timothy J. Eberlein, MD, Siteman Cancer Center director and the Spencer T. and Ann W. Olin Distinguished Professor at Washington University School of Medicine, said the groundbreaking is culminating on the building of relationships that Siteman Cancer Center has had with this community.
“We are building on the work of people like Dr. Arnold Bullock, who for years has been coming up here, doing health fairs, doing screenings, prostate cancer screenings, lectures; building on Lannis Hall’s work with St. Louis American and developing minority accrual to our clinical trials; people like Melody Goodman, who developed the Community Fellows program – the only one like it in the country; people like Vetta Thompson, Bettina Drake, Amy James – who have been out here doing outreach and education programs; Matt Kruger, Graham Colditz and many, many others.”
Multidisciplinary care teams at Siteman include radiation oncologists, medical oncologists and surgeons, as well as dietitians, psychologists, nurses and other staff. Siteman also offers access to 500 clinical trials evaluating innovative cancer therapies, which often are not available elsewhere in the region.
Rick Stevens, president of Christian Hospital, said they broke ground on the same site 43 years ago for Christian Hospital Northwest, and broke ground 15 years ago on this site for its replacement, Northwest Healthcare.
“As we listened to the community and address healthcare delivery’s shift to outpatient services, Northwest Healthcare continues today to serve as a successful model for outpatient diagnostic and emergency services,” Stevens said. “It was a welcome milestone last July when Siteman Cancer Center opened at Christian Hospital. Since that time, we’ve been looking forward to this new gathering today to break ground on our new world-class, $26.3 million Siteman Cancer Center on this campus.”
New technology available at the North County Siteman satellite will include a linear accelerator, a machine that uses electricity to form a stream of fast-moving subatomic particles. This creates high-energy radiation that is used to treat cancer. A computed tomography, or CT scanner, combines multiple X-ray images of the internal anatomy, so tumors or other abnormalities can be visualized.
“As too many of us know, fighting cancer takes so much of our patient focus, so much of our family and friends’ attention,” said Sherrill Jackson, founder and president of the breast cancer survivor and support network, The Breakfast Club. “Having the expertise of these doctors close to home removes some of the stress and, hopefully, reduces disparities. Barriers such as transportation, parking, keeping appointments could be significantly reduced. It’s reassuring to know you will receive the same excellent care without driving 15 miles away to the Barnes campus. Very soon, that care will be offered in a beautiful, new building with the latest medical equipment, right here in our own community.”
The design of the new facility is patient-centered and will include a family lounge with a fireplace, a conference room that also will serve as a community room for social events, a healing garden donated by the Christian Hospital Foundation, and paintings by noted local artists Cbabi Bayoc and Jessica Hitchcock.
The grand opening for the new Siteman North location is expected in December 2019.
