Orange : Hospital Will Dedicate Its New Cancer Center

St. Joseph Hospital will dedicate its new $6.5-million regional cancer center on Tuesday ) afternoon.

The center, a 25,000 square-foot building next to the main hospital, will be “a one-stop shop for cancer services,” hospital spokesman Dennis Gaschen said. The center will offer radiation treatment, dietary counseling, biofeedback and chemotherapy for outpatients, he said.

The cancer center is the first of three such centers to be built in Orange County over the next several years. Hoag Memorial Hospital Presbyterian has been raising money to build a $21-million, 65,000 square-foot outpatient cancer center. Construction is expected to begin next January and be finished by late 1989.

In addition, UCI Medical Center has planned an $11.5-million, 54,000 square-foot cancer center, which is expected to be completed in the fall of 1989. Both Hoag and UCI want to centralize cancer services, which are now scattered all over their large hospital complexes.

A Hoag patient now must walk more than a quarter of a mile from the parking lot to a lab and on to radiation services, Hoag spokeswoman Gail Love said. “We have a terrific need to centralize these services. . . . We are building in response to the need,” she said.