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Hoag Scores Goal: Cancer Center Funds : Bulldozers Begin Grading 5-Acre Site at Newport Hospital

Times Staff Writer

After a 15-month campaign, Hoag Memorial Hospital Presbyterian in Newport Beach has raised more than $21.3 million for its new cancer center, surpassing its fund-raising goal by about $300,0000, hospital president Michael Stephens announced Thursday.

Although a ground-breaking ceremony for the 65,000-square-foot Patricia and George Hoag Cancer Center is scheduled for April 9, bulldozers Thursday began grading the 5-acre bluff-top site next to the 35-year-old hospital. The center is expected to be completed in the fall of 1989.

The new building, linked to the main hospital by a pedestrian walkway, will consolidate all outpatient cancer services under one roof--from chemotherapy and radiation treatments to laboratories and cancer prevention programs. In addition, the center will offer some experimental treatments through Hoag’s association with a private Newport Beach firm, Pacific Coast Biotherapeutics Inc.

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Treatment Areas Scattered

For years, oncology treatment areas at Hoag have been scattered around the large hospital and cancer patients have had to walk more than than a quarter of a mile from the parking lot to the laboratory to the radiation treatment area, Hoag officials have said.

Two regional cancer centers are to be completed in Orange County within two years, and a third was completed last year.

In September, St. Joseph Hospital in Orange opened a $6.5-million, 25,000-square-foot cancer center that it billed as a “one-stop shop for cancer services.” That center offers radiation treatment, dietary counseling, biofeedback and chemotherapy for outpatients.

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Also, UCI Medical Center in Orange has planned an $11.5-million, 54,000-square foot cancer center, expected to be completed in early 1990.

Like the other cancer centers, UCI’s building will centralize its cancer treatment services to outpatients. That center will offer radiation and oncology treatments, an outpatient surgical suite and specialized treatment for brain tumors, head and neck cancers, breast cancer, pediatric cancers and melanomas. In addition, UCI’s center will provide laboratory space for basic research in cancer treatment, Maryanne French, acting cancer center administrator, said.

Gerken Chaired Campaign

The fund-raising campaign for Hoag’s cancer center began Oct. 29, 1986, and was chaired by Walter Gerken, former chairman of the board of the Pacific Mutual insurance companies in Newport Beach. Gerken was assisted by a 36-member committee of community leaders and volunteers.

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About $2 million of the $21 million raised for the center is designated as an endowment to provide assistance to patients for cancer treatment, educational programs and research. The remaining $19 million is designated for the new building and cancer center equipment, Hoag officials said.

The center is named after Newport Beach residents Patricia Hoag and her husband George Hoag II, a retired businessman and former board chairman of Hoag. Hoag is also the son of George Hoag, whose family foundation contributed the first $500,000 to build the hospital in 1952.

A recent $200,000 gift by Freedom Newspapers put the cancer center campaign over the top, president Stephens said Thursday. Other major donations including $6 million from the Hoag Foundation, $2 million from the Arnold and Mabel Beckman foundation, $1 million from the hospital’s 552 Club, $1 million from the Harry and Grace Steele Foundation, $750,000 from the hospital’s Sandpipers support group and $500,000 from former cancer patient Sandy Sewell and her husband Richard of Newport Beach.

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