Hays Medical Center
The HaysMed Dreiling/Schmidt Cancer Institute will soon have a new option for some radiation patients, an option that will offer them quicker, easier and less intrusive treatment.
In May, the HaysMed Foundation announced a campaign, Envision a Future Without Cancer, to raise a minimum of $1.3 million towards the purchase of a new linear accelerator with Stereotactic Body Radiation Therapy (SBRT) capability.
SBRT is a major advancement in radiation therapy that maintains the effectiveness of standard treatment and can deliver a few very high doses of radiation to well-defined tumors. Standard radiation therapy could be reduced from 6 to 9 weeks of daily treatments to a total of 5 treatments. The total cost of the project is $3 million.
Representatives from the Hadley Foundation board were at the news conference on Friday to announce a gift of $1 million dollars to the Envision campaign. The Hadley Foundation gift brings the total amount raised to more than $1.4 million. Dr. John Jeter, President and CEO of HaysMed, announced that HaysMed will proceed with the purchase of the equipment.
“This equipment sounds like a wonderful thing for this community and the people of western Kansas,” said Joe Jeter, president of the Hadley Foundation. “The fact that you can come to this facility and have Dr. Babu Prasad’s people take care of you in a weeks time rather than four or five weeks, while not burning as much tissue and also making a shorter trip, that’s what sold us immediately.”
Dr. Prasad, a radiation oncologist at HaysMed, told the audience at the conference that the equipment is expected to be installed over a seven to eight week period beginning in February.
Minor room renovations will be done to the current radiation room to accommodate the equipment. By April, the new equipment should be installed, tested and ready to treat the people of western Kansas.
“This technology has brought a paradigm shift to this hospital, community and the people of northwest Kansas,” Prasad said. “If I say this is tomorrow’s treatment or the next generation’s treatment, it would not be an exaggeration.”