The radiation and oncology treatment department of the Mary Hitchcock Memorial Hospital will move to a new $14.1 million building in the Dartmouth Hitchcock Medical Center complex in Lebanon within the next two to three years.
The building, which will be funded by MHMH, the Hitchcock Clinic and the Norris Cotton Cancer Center, will be built on a vacant lot between the Borwell Research Facility and the Hitchcock Clinic.
The facility will house all the components of the Norris Cotton Cancer Center, which is now divided between Lebanon and Hanover.
Stephen Marion, vice-president of regional planning for the hospital, said the cancer center's purpose is to combine in-patient and out-patient care along with cancer research.
"We are not fulfilling that role now," he said. "We will function much more effectively if we can reintegrate."
Ted Fantl, the hospital's administrative director of radiation and oncology agreed. "The re-integration [of the cancer center] is important for patient care and to foster interaction among cancer specialists," he said.
The radiation department treats between 55 and 100 cancer patients a day, according to Fantl.
Of these, 10 to 14 are in-patients who must be moved between the center and the hospital in ambulances, Marion said. And many of the out-patients must go to both facilities on the same day.
Marion said this inconvenience is one of the factors that necessitated the move from the old facility.
The radiation treatment facility is the only department of the Norris Cotton Cancer Center left in the MHMH's old location on Maynard Street in Hanover. The other departments moved to the Lebanon complex two years ago.
According to Marion, the radiation department remained in the old center to take advantage of its recent $6 million renovations.
Marion said the remodeling was almost finished when the Hospital and Clinic decided to move because the Town of Hanover rejected plans for an expansion of the hospital in 1986.
"The timing was truly unfortunate," Fantl said. "But we had no choice. We were at the point where we had to replace equipment. Very few believed there would be a new medical center."
Currently, the radiation department leases space in the old cancer center from the College, which bought the building from the DHMC to further its planned northward campus expansion.
"Dartmouth has been very responsive to our needs and requests," Fantl said. "I appreciate their efforts."
The treatment center's lease with the College lasts until 2006, but the lease allows the College to tear down the old hospital in 1997, according to Marion.
"If we were to stay beyond 1998, which the agreement would allow us to do, we would have to pay Dartmouth a significant amount of money, around $1.5 million, to isolate this facility from the rest of the building," Fantl added.
To avoid these extra expenses, the treatment center decided to move as soon as possible.
"We hope to be out within two and a half to three years," Fantl said. "The move was inevitable. The only issue was the timing of the move [and] it's cheaper to move now than to wait."
Construction on the building will probably begin next spring and will take approximately two and a half years to finish, according to Marion.
Fantl said the new treatment center would not be completely functional until six months after the completion of the building due to the length of time necessary to move the center's three linear accelerators.
Each machine takes six to eight weeks to move, and the center will be moving them one at a time, keeping two of the machines functional at all time.