An investment in our community's health

We wish Carson-Tahoe Hospital well as it embarks on plans to build an accredited cancer treatment center that has the potential to make Carson City a statewide, and perhaps national, leader in the ongoing battle.

The center is an ambitious project, expected to cost $10 million to $12 million and be built over the next three years, a part of the hospital's planned campus in northwest Carson City.

The building itself -- housing radiation and chemotherapy treatments, as well as support groups and other services needed by cancer patients -- will be a major accomplishment and tremendous benefit to the patients. But as important on another level would be accreditation of the center by the National Cancer Institute, something so far attained by no other cancer center in Nevada.

This is part of the leadership expected of Carson-Tahoe Hospital from the community when ownership was turned over to a private nonprofit corporation earlier this year. One of the most significant assets of Carson City throughout its history, Carson-Tahoe is looking not just to survive in the future but to thrive.

It already has taken steps to meet the demand for oncology services by adding a doctor and is recruiting more.

And while excellence and convenience in patient care are the top priorities, Carson-Tahoe also has opportunities to provide economic leadership in the community.

If the needs of patients can't be met here, they will go elsewhere. That fact was the driving force behind formation of the private corporation, and it is the driving force behind Carson-Tahoe's strategy for a cancer center and new medical complex.

The hospital deserves our support in these endeavors. Few investments in our community will ever prove to be as valuable to our health, both physically and economically.