Methodist Fremont Health hosted a ribbon cutting and reopening ceremony Friday morning for its newly renovated and upgraded Radiation Oncology Clinic.
Officials said about $2 million of the $3.5 million project – which includes a new, state-of-the-art radiotherapy system – was provided by the Fremont Health Foundation and donors following a two-year fundraising campaign.
Dr. Bill Haung, a radiation oncologist, provided details about the improvements.
“We have a new high-tech linear accelerator radiation treatment machine for our cancer patients,” he said. “It is cutting edge and is able to do complicated treatments quickly, precisely and more effectively.”
Dr. Haung said the equipment — in some cases — will allow doctors to care for patients suffering from various forms of cancer with treatments instead of surgery.
“We’re very excited to bring this type of technology to Fremont for the first time,” he said.
Methodist Fremont Health President and CEO Bill Vobejda agrees.
“From a community perspective, you don’t often find a hospital of this size or a community of this size with this level of cancer care,” he said. “Having this technology, this care program here in our community is a real differentiator for what we do for our patients.”
Vobejda notes that patients won’t have to be traveling to Omaha or other communities for treatments.
“They might have 15, 20 or 30 different treatments,” he said. “You want to do that in your community with the same caregivers and so now we have everything here that you would find at any state-of-the-art hospital that is doing radiation therapy.”
Vobejda said he grateful to the generous donors that contributed to the campaign.
“Fundraising in health care is difficult. Health care is an expensive proposition for anybody,” he said. “Going to your community, trying to make your case … it was phenomenal. Raising a little over $2 million for this program also allowed us to make sure it was going to happen here in our community and happen a little bit faster. It also allowed us as an organization to make our other investments in other programs where we can.”
