CARIBOU, Maine — Cary Medical Center held an open house earlier this month, in which staff gave tours and discussed the recent addition of the Jefferson Cary Cancer Center to their facility.
“We started talking about (the center) about a year and a half ago,” said Jenn Plant, manager of the Jefferson Cary Cancer Center, “and real plans were put in place about a year ago. Construction started in June. We moved into the center near the end of summer, but it wasn’t complete at that time. There were still some finishing touches to be made at the time, but we wanted to get in as soon as we could.”
The center itself is roughly 1,700 square feet in size and, according to Plant, there are 10 patient chairs available, in addition to four exam rooms. “The exam rooms can also be used as private rooms for patients that are symptomatic,” she added.
“We have had oncology services for a long time,” said Regen Gallagher, chief medical officer at Cary. “We’ve had fabulous staff that took care of our patients, but we didn’t always have the space that patients deserve. Now the space that everyone has to work in complements that staff and gives patients a comfortable, happy place to be in when they are going through something that is pretty awful. Our patients deserve a comfortable space like this.”
“We also added space for physician’s offices,” said Plant, “which is a big change for us. Physically, the oncologists weren’t with us before, and it was a little more difficult to not have them within earshot and to be as hands-on with patients as we would like. Having them right there with us has been great.”
“We recently recruited Dr. Nadia Rajack and Dr. Allan Espinosa as oncologists, and began to build a more comprehensive cancer program,” said Cary Medical Center CEO Kris Doody. “With the addition of our new oncologists, we began the plans of building a center just for patients receiving oncology or hematology services and converted what was previously our specialty clinic to an office for those patients and to have a brand new area where our chemotherapy treatments are offered.”
Doody said this is a big step forward for Cary Medical Center. “We have patients in our community who have been diagnosed with cancer or other hematological issues and they can be diagnosed and receive their treatment right here. We have had some patients go on to Bangor, Portland and Boston to receive second opinions and then they come back and receive treatment here, close to home and close to their loved ones.”
