NIU opposes DuPage hospital's bid for proton therapy clinic
A long line of supporters and detractors spent Wednesday weighing in on a plan by Central DuPage Hospital to build a proton cancer therapy treatment center in Warrenville.
The Illinois Health Facilities Planning Board conducted a public hearing at city hall in advance of the agency's formal vote on the Winfield hospital's project next month in Springfield.
The Winfield hospital is hoping to build a $140 million proton center within Warrenville's Cantera development. Hospital officials said the proposed center could be used to treat, at its peak, up to 1,500 patients a year.
State regulators last week approved a plan by Northern Illinois University, which requested Wednesday's public hearing, to build their own proton treatment center at the DuPage National Technology Park in West Chicago.
Several NIU officials on Wednesday criticized the Central DuPage project, arguing the hospital was providing a duplicate service just six miles away from the university's own center.
School officials also did their best to paint Central DuPage's partner, Procure Treatment Centers, as a company interested primarily in profiting from the emerging cancer treatment.
"As a lifelong resident of this state, I am disturbed that a for-profit with a Wall Street mentality to health care will bring its operations to Illinois," said Eddie Williams, an executive vice president and chief of operations for the DeKalb university.
Both Central DuPage and Procure countered those claims by arguing that the nation's five proton therapy centers can't keep up with the demand of patients hoping to make use of the emerging treatment option.
To underscore that point, the Winfield hospital brought several family members of cancer patients to speak on behalf of the project. All of them urged the state board to approve the center.
Chicago resident Dennis Heuer tearfully recalled his experiences last year in dealing with his wife's treatment of nasal cancer.
The couple spent several weeks in Boston receiving treatment at a proton therapy treatment center at Massachusetts General Hospital.
"I'm confident the treatment saved my wife from blindness," Heuer said. "If one of these centers was located closer to my home, I wouldn't have had to take all those weeks off of work."
Lisa Moore, a La Porte, Ind., woman whose son was first diagnosed with cancer six years ago, said she was turned away from proton therapy centers in Boston and Loma Linda, Calif., because of the limited number of treatment spots.
Moore eventually sought conventional radiation therapy through St. Jude Children's Research Hospital in Memphis, which, she said, left her son with some nerve damage and other side effects.
"Although we are truly grateful for the excellent radiation treatment we received," Moore said, "I do wonder if the (side) effects would have been reduced if he would have been able to use protons."
The Illinois Health Facilities Planning Board is expected to vote on the Central DuPage proton therapy project during its meeting next month in Springfield.