Forces unite to battle cancer at new Arroyo Grande hospital center

Community hospital opens doors to new cancer center that combines medical oncology, outpatient surgery and diagnostic technology under one roof

Stephen Curran

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Arroyo Grande Community Hospital is slated to open its Coastal Cancer Care and Diagnostic Center today, barely six months after local doctors and health care leaders announced plans for the facility.

Doctors began treating a handful of patients at the Oak Park Boulevard center earlier this month, and crews completed finishing touches on the new office this week. A grand opening ceremony is scheduled for this afternoon.

The center combines medical oncology, outpatient surgery and diagnostic technology into one site and is the first such facility in San Luis Obispo County to receive the “official comprehensive cancer center” designation from the American College of Surgeons, a national standard-setting organization.

Backers say consolidating those cancer care services in a single center helps patients maneuver through a difficult and often confusing diagnosis.

Completion of the $1.5 million facility is the result of several years of planning and collaboration among local physicians, said David Palchak, a medical oncologist and liaison physician for the center.

“Everybody was doing the best they could,” he said of the level of care once available in the county, “but the infrastructure wasn’t there.”

The hospital estimates that 1,385 county residents will be diagnosed with cancer this year. Historically, according to hospital officials, about 28 percent of those patients would have traveled outside the area for treatment.

Hospital executives expect the cancer center, once at full capacity, will treat up to 50 patients, most of them from the South County.

Nipomo resident Jackie Hertzog, who was diagnosed with a rare neuroendocrine cancer in September, routinely travels to San Francisco to participate in a clinical drug trial. While she will still have to travel occasionally, Hertzog said the new center will offer her other services, including a wig center and counseling.

“It will be someplace that will be a resource for me,” said Hertzog, a registered nurse at Arroyo Grande Community Hospital and a patient of Palchak’s. “… There’s no way I’m going to give up my docs here.”

The Arroyo Grande cancer center is not the first attempt to open such a facility in the county. King City-based Mee Memorial Hospital saw its cancer center in Paso Robles close late last year amid high-profile financial troubles shortly after opening.

Unlike Mee Memorial, Arroyo Grande Community Hospital President Rick Castro said, the South County cancer center grew from a grassroots effort by local doctors to create a more comprehensive facility here.

A cancer center, Castro said, “has very little to do with the building and more to do with the community support.”