"Hope" was the theme Saturday as national and local dignitaries including Vice President Dick Cheney broke ground for the new 50-bed Huntsman Cancer Research Hospital at the east end of the University of Utah campus. The hospital will be finished in July 2004.
The 230,000-square-foot hospital will provide "real hope where once there was none," along with "the finest care to patients throughout the Intermountain West," said Cheney, longtime friend of Karen and Jon M. Huntsman. And the hospital will add "even greater momentum to the fight against a disease that still claims a half-million lives a year."
He predicted cancer's defeat, "along with all the suffering and sadness it brings."
Karen Huntsman recalled her fear the day her husband took her for a drive and told her he had prostate cancer. Much of the impetus behind creation of the Huntsman Cancer Institute and later the new hospital came from realizing "I had so many questions, but no place to go." The Huntsmans set out to change that with the Huntsman Cancer Institute, which combines research, treatment and patient and family education.
Jon M. Huntsman promised a hospital where "the patient will always come first." And he noted the researchers at the adjoining institute are on the "cutting edge in the world" when it comes to combining medicine and science.
President Gordon B. Hinckley, of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, harked back to polio, "once a dreaded scourge. Now it is gone." Smallpox once wiped out entire communities. "I have confidence it will be the same with cancer. The way may be long and fraught with difficulty," he said, but it will come thanks to hospitals like the one being built at the U. "Slowly, the mystery (of cancer) is being unlocked."
Gov. Mike Leavitt called the gathering a meeting to "celebrate the meaning of the word hope. . . . May long live our hope, may long live our faith."
"Too often, a patient is required to create his or her own system," Dr. Stephen M. Prescott, Huntsman Cancer Institute executive director, said. "To deliver optimum care to a cancer patient requires a lot of pieces. We are obligated to create such a system."
The rooms in the hospital will be larger than average so a family member can sleep over. It will have four operating rooms and 32 outpatient exam rooms. Services will include radiation therapy, physical therapy, urgent care, diagnostic radiology, a diagnostic laboratory and a pharmacy, as well as a fully equipped business center, a chapel with meditation rooms, conference center, a dining area and a gift shop, all joined to the institute by enclosed glass walkways.
The hospital's "elegant" design is expandable, Prescott said. It is likely to increase and the original design includes expansion plans for doubling the number of beds and adding operating rooms, etc., without just tacking them onto the existing structure.
Prescott said the integrated system is not unique, but it is unusual, rich with both niceties and necessities. For instance, psychological needs and nutrition concerns will be important along with managing the disease itself. He hopes it will meet some of the same needs that make "complementary medicine" popular: "It's the humanness of it. The dealing with emotional well-being. People want that and they need it. Too often, it's either/or with traditional high-tech medicine.
"Medicine need not be cold, heartless and uncaring. We can deliver the highest tech, best care you can find anywhere and address other needs systematically, as well," he said.
The lobby, for instance, has been designed to create an emotional response that will "lift spirits, be first class and give hope and inspiration." Patients won't have to venture into public space so they needn't worry about how they look or whether their hospital gowns preserve their modesty, Prescott said.
He believes the niceties will pay for themselves over time. "Clever" design by Jensen Haslam Architects PC and Babcock Design Group will keep operating costs lower. Staff will cost more, Prescott said, but money will be saved because the patients will feel better in that kind of atmosphere and will experience fewer side effects as a result.
The state issued $100 million in 20-year bonds to start construction. The Huntsman Cancer Foundation will assume 60 percent of the debt repayment, with the other 40 percent from the U., which will use existing cash reserves and money it receives each year from the national tobacco settlement.
It will operate under the auspices of the University of Utah Hospitals and Clinics, with an administrative staff that reports to U. Hospital administrator Richard Fullmer.
E-mail: lois@desnews.com