For anyone battling cancer, the disease itself is obviously concern number one, however, for many of those patients, especially those living in rural areas, there is so much more on their plate. Just the travel to appointments alone can mean eight to 10 hours a day in a car.
However, a Watertown hospital is trying to change that and help those get the best care possible as close to home as possible with help from one of the best cancer centers in the country.
“We are bursting at the seam,” Samaritan Medical Center’s Walker Cancer Center Directory of Oncology Services Eva Edwards said.
The Walker Cancer Center opened in the rural city of Watertown in 2018, just three years ago. For being a relatively brand new practice, Eva is not kidding when she says it is bursting at the seam.
“That means that we typically see between 45 and 60 patients a day,” she said.
The Walker Cancer Center is not as well knows as others around the state or country that have earned a great reputation. There’s not the large staff or the major resources to cover all the bases of services. Those are things that are very important to those who are battling life threatening diseases.
However, all of those questions were answered through the very issue that Eva says no one ever questioned once: quality of care.
Care so great, it earned the attention of a top 15 cancer center in the entire country, Roswell Park in Buffalo. The folks at Roswell have been so impressed with the facility, they made a phone call to Walker, offering an affiliation.
“The most important thing that people in the oncology world want to do is take care of patients. Here at Walker and with Roswell, we’ll be able to elevate that care and provide them that continued care and that circle of hope,” Edwards said.
The affiliation brought access to Roswell’s specialists, Walker’s doctors became Roswell employees, a wider access to telemedicine was introduced, new therapies, various insurance coverages and even clinical trials began.
“Just being able to offer them the ability to enter these trials that are producing amazing data, and a disease progression survival is something that every cancer patient acros the world should be offered,” Edwards said.
Perhaps just as important, the partnership allows the people of the North Country who need access to these services to not have to travel several hours each way just to get it.
In fact, Eva says the affiliation has already helped one North Country woman who was traveling to Roswell for insurance reasons. She can now stay in Watertown for her care, according to Eva. In addition to cancer treatments, Roswell also offers post-treatment mental health care.