Franciscan Alliance Breaks Ground On $46M Comprehensive Cancer Center in Munster

Franciscan Alliance Breaks Ground On $46M Comprehensive Cancer Center in Munster

On Friday, Franciscan Alliance celebrated the groundbreaking and blessing of their new Comprehensive Cancer Center with a ceremony held at their Munster hospital.

“Today is really a momentous moment for us as we bless and break ground for Franciscan Healthcare - Munster's new Comprehensive Cancer Center,” said Sister Aline Shultz, Franciscan Healthcare - Munster Chief Operating Officer. “It seemed like only yesterday when we celebrated the opening, in January, of another dream - our 24-hour Emergency Department which is fulfilling all of our expectations in the need in Northwest Indiana for emergency care.”

The $46 million project will be connected to the hospital through the outpatient service center and feature a three-story, 83,500 square-foot Cancer Center that will also serve as a medical office building.

“It will be a boon to the area and an invaluable resource to our patients once it’s completed in 2018,” Sister Aline said. “We’re excited to begin this new venture as it further demonstrates Franciscan’s commitment to continuing growth in Northwest Indiana. There isn’t another comprehensive cancer treatment center in Northwest Indiana that will have the capabilities under one roof that this will have. We will be offering university-scale cancer treatment here. A lot of people go to Chicago for the kinds of services we are going to offer. We hope to keep them in Northwest Indiana.”

The new cancer treatment center will feature radiation oncology treatment, medical oncology-infusion therapy, four state-of-the-art endoscopy suites and oncology laboratory services. There will also be a breast center that will offer a complete line of services including mammography screenings, diagnostics and bone density testing.

Tracey Franovich is the Vice President of Clinical Operations at Franciscan Health and has been working with project architects, Design Organization, and the entire team at Franciscan Healthcare - Munster to design the Comprehensive Cancer Center.

“We’re bringing our services together across the three campuses and in the design part it’s been a test but we’re working very well together to do that,” said Franovich. “Not only do we have the staff support but we’ve also had great physician support so that’s exciting. With our medical oncology we’ll be adding fifteen infusion chairs and we’ll have pharmacy and laboratory adjacent to that department so the service will be very efficient. We’ll also be adding a full service breast center to the location. We’ll offer a retail center and a resource center that supports the cancer service line as well.”

Sister Jane Marie Klein, Chairwoman of the Board at Franciscan Alliance, also spoke at the groundbreaking ceremony.

“It is exciting to be here once again in Munster for the groundbreaking of the Cancer Center now,” Sister Jane said. “It’s great to see Munster and Franciscan Munster blossoming and going forward.”

To find out more about Franciscan Health locations and the services, specialties and health resources offered at Franciscan, go to: www.franciscanalliance.org