Hospital tries to ease opposition to proposed cancer care unit
GREENWICH — Every year, 446 Greenwich residents are diagnosed with cancer, according to Diane Kelly, president of Greenwich Hospital.
And many of those local patients end up traveling to New York City, New Haven or Boston to get the latest treatments available, Kelly said.
To offer those patients a closer option, Greenwich Hospital has proposed the construction of a three-story building next to the Greenwich Hospital campus that would house a 54,865square-foot cancer-care unit.
Many area residents would benefit from having a top-flight cancer facility located within the community, where they could access high-end treatments, and it would bolster overall medical care in town, Kelly said.
“If you would get half of those patients, you would be making a significant difference to the lives of those people,” she said. Overall, the hospital administration is emphasizing the value of getting treatment at a top-flight cancer center in the town — and not traveling an hour or more.
Cancer rates are going up around the region as the population ages, and long-drives for cancer care can be a serious burden to patients and their caregivers, said Kelly,
who is also a nurse.
But the hospital’s proposal, which is currently pending in the Planning and Zoning Commission, has hit a wall of opposition from its neighbors. They are voicing a litany of complaints about disruptions they already face from the hospital and saying they don’t want to put up with more if the facility were built.
In an effort to mend fences with the neighbors, Kelly said she and other hospital administrators want to hold regular meetings and address the issues. They held a “town hall-style” meeting with about 50 residents last
Thursday, where Kelly answered questions, took complaints and explained the role of the proposed cancer care unit.
She said she wanted to hold regular meetings in the future. “I look at this as beginning on an ongoing dialogue,” Kelly told the attendees. She said she wanted to initiate a “neighborhood advisory council” to facilitate communications with the residents who live near Greenwich Hospital, especially those who have voiced concerns about the size of the proposed building.
Kelly also told neighbors why the cancer care
unit was proposed for Lake Avenue, near Greenwich Hospital. That proximity would allow for better levels of care, she said, explaining that it’s not uncommon for patients undergoing chemotherapy for the first time to require care in the emergency room following shock to the body. The equipment for radiation machines, and the lead-lined rooms that they are housed in, are not well-suited to leased office complexes, Kelly said. The hospital’s blood bank is also located in the main building on Perryridge Road.
The new Bendheim
Cancer Center, as the project is called, would be built at Lafayette Place and Lake Street, and several medical offices there would be demolished to make way for it.
But residents who live near the hospital expressed their firm opposition.
Karen Fassuliotis, a central Greenwich resident, said during the teleconferenced meeting, “You’re trying to put a round peg in a square hole with this particular project . ... I don’t see it working in this neighborhood.”
Tonya Gojani, another local resident, said traffic is already bad in the area around Greenwich Hospital. “Why has it gotten to this point?” she said, asking why the hospital had not been working on the traffic problems earlier.
The hospital president said, “I regret that . ... When you know better, you do better.”
Chief Operating Officer Mark Kosak said the initial plans for the new cancer-care unit have been scaled down due to community input, cutting out one floor and reducing the square footage from 90,000 square feet. The design had also been changed to make the structure “more welcoming, more part of the neighborhood,” Kosak said.
The hospital has also changed its delivery schedule and procedures to reduce traffic problems that have been raised recently. “We’re hearing you, we’re listening,” Kosak told the residents. The hospital administration said it was working on plans to improve traffic flow in the area, and said the new facility would have its own free underground parking garage.
The hospital administrators said Greenwich police have also been cracking down on illegally parked vehicles in the area. Local residents said they were happy to see a greater police presence in the area — but wondered how much longer it would last.
The hospital administrators said they would look into the possibility of adding more traffic enforcement and security in the area in the future.
Lawrence Sterne, another neighbor, said traffic in the area near the hospital is a “recipe for disaster.”
The hospital administrators were questioned about billing rates, and whether the hospital could charge a higher rate for insurance reimbursements than an annex built in another part of town.
Kelly said, “If you have the level of services, because of the care that the patient needs, it is true you are reimbursed more than an [office] .... Hospital departments are re-reimbursed more than if this were a standalone center, with no physicians and no radiation oncology.”
Still, many see the downside to putting a large medical facility in their neighborhood.
Mary Jenkins, who lives near Greenwich Hospital, said, “there is so much traffic now.” The possibility of even more traffic is a major concern, she said.