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Hartford Hospital Opens New Oncology Unit

26-bed Unit Features 'Hospital Rooms of the Future

William Weir

October 25, 2010

A new, 26-bed inpatient oncology unit opens at Hartford Hospital today.

The unit is part of the hospital's Helen & Harry Gray Cancer Center; patients will be moved there Wednesday. Construction took just under one year to complete, and cost $11.5 million. The new unit features what Hartford Hospital spokeswoman Rebecca Stewart calls "hospital rooms of the future" — designed to be safer environments. The rooms are also larger than average to better accommodate family visits.

More than 50,000 patient visits are made annually to the center, which opened in 1990. Because it provides cancer treatment to traditionally underserved populations, the center has been selected as a National Cancer Institute Community Cancer Centers Program.

The National Cancer Institute recently selected the center as one of 14 to take part in a three-year program designed to find new ways to treat the needs of members of certain demographics, including racial and ethnic groups particularly prone to cancer, as well as the elderly, rural, inner-city and low-income patients.