Hearing on Bon Secours cancer center draws few

CARROLLTON

A comprehensive cancer center that Bon Secours Hampton Roads Health System has proposed for its Suffolk outpatient campus would be a boon to that growing city and the surrounding community, Suffolk Mayor Linda Johnson said at a public hearing Friday.

"Our city is now projected to grow by another 113 percent by 2034," she told Virginia Department of Health staff and an audience of about 25. "As our city expands, so do the needs of our citizens, and paramount of those needs is health care."

Bon Secours has requested approval from the state health commissioner to relocate its cancer radiation therapy services from Maryview Medical Center in Portsmouth to Harbour View Health Center in Suffolk.

The move would allow Bon Secours to create a $10.8 million "one-stop" cancer center at Harbour View, complete with infusion treatment, support groups, counselors and other services, leaders of the health system said. It also would move the care to a location more central to its patient base and closer to where population growth is expected, they said.

Harbour View is about six miles from Maryview.

If approved, however, the change would end cancer radiation services in Portsmouth. The state health commissioner already has rejected the plan once - less than a year ago.

Portsmouth Vice Mayor Charles B. Whitehurst Sr. voiced objections earlier this week when he attended a groundbreaking at Maryview. The ceremony was for the radiation therapy equipment that would be moved under Bon Secours' plan.

On Friday, three members of the public, including Johnson and two physicians who work for Bon Secours, spoke at the hearing in Carrollton. No one opposed the application.

Dr. Judith Blevins, a radiation oncologist at Maryview, said many of her colleagues who treat cancer already have moved their offices near Harbour View. Her patients tell her they'd prefer their caregivers to be closer together.

"They will ask, 'Why don't we have a comprehensive care facility where we can see everybody at one time and get all our care in one place?' " Blevins said.

Indigent patients in Hampton Roads often receive cancer diagnoses, said Dr. Amy Price, Bon Secours' medical director for programs serving that population. Those patients usually qualify for Medicaid, she said, and that government insurance program provides them with free transportation.

"Their main input to us is that they care about services that are both available and affordable," Price said.

Amy Jeter, (757) 446-2730, amy.jeter@pilotonline.com