Today (Monday) marked the culmination of what started as just a hope for the future as the St. Anthony Regional Hospital Cancer Center opened for patients. Cancer Services Director, Lori Pietig, says they rang the bell first thing in the morning to mark the end of the construction and fundraising phase that kicked off with a groundbreaking ceremony in April of 2019.
Pietig says Foundation Director, Trish Roberts, along with board members from the hospital and the foundation partnered with community members to form the Building Hope Capitol Campaign committee. They were able to raise more than $10 million for the roughly $16.5 million facility—and Pietig says donations are still coming in. It is often difficult to express just how much this means to them.
The Cancer Center is a way for St. Anthony to take those services to the next level. The plan followed on the heels of a 2017 feasibility study which showed their equipment was aging, they were outgrowing facility space and were unable to expand in the existing location. Pietig says the most cost-effective way to accomplish that goal was to build a free-standing facility and she says it is truly state-of-the-art.
It is unheard of for a community the size of Carroll to have this type of treatment center and Pietig says it even rivals those found in larger cities. A good share of the staff members working at the center are from Carroll and Pietig says those members and all others have had an emotional response to the completion of this project.
Typically, when St. Anthony introduces a new service or upgrades a space, they have 2,000 to 3,000 visitors come through at an open house. This year, that was not possible, so Pietig says as they plan to have a celebration, hopefully next spring, everyone is invited to take their first look through a video produced to commemorate this very special day. A link to that video can be found below.
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Link to virtual tour of St. Anthony Cancer Center: https://www.stanthonyhospital.org/hope-delivered/
