New $12M Cancer Center Coming to Ashland

ASHLAND - "We're excited I think it's gonna be just tremendous to be able to offer this to our patients," Memorial Medical Center Chief Operating Officer Karen Hansen said.

While the current cancer center in Ashland is housed with top notch doctors and services, not all patients are able to get everything they need there to fight their disease.

Forcing some of them to drive more than an hour to Duluth for specialized treatments.

"And that's a big inconvenience, it's a burden on the patients,” said Hansen. “It's a daily drive for sometimes up to 6 weeks."

But that is about to change.

Memorial Medical Center and Essentia Health are partnering to build the brand new Northwest Wisconsin Cancer Center right in Ashland.

"When anybody has cancer it's such a serious most difficult time for the patient as well as the family,” Essentia Health Internal Medicine physician Dr. Kim Ogle said. “If we can do everything we can to keep people at home and locally."

"We want something that's very comfortable for our patient's, easy access, good flow," said Hansen.

The $12 million facility will offer patients a lot more services including infusion therapy, clinical trials and even a cancer rehabilitation program.

"Which will help with survivorship and what goes on after you've completed chemo or radiation," said Hansen.

Doctors tell us one of the most important new treatments the 35,000 square foot building will provide is radiation oncology, a therapy that can help heal and stop the spread of cancer.

"It's very exciting to be able to offer that to people in this area,” said Ogle. “It will help certainly time wise it can help sometimes financially."

Officials say the new center will also create some new positions including staff support and nurses.

They plan on breaking ground in March and if all goes well the new center will open up in August of 2015.