Saint Francis breaks ground on heart center

Saint Francis Medical Center held a groundbreaking ceremony Wednesday morning for its $84 million Heart Hospital and Cancer Institute.

The four-story, 180,000-square-foot facility will provide focused care for heart disease and cancer, the top two killers of Missourians. Hospital officials said the facility -- expected to open by fall 2011 -- will include additional cardiac catheterization labs to provide relief for heart attack victims and more linear accelerators to expand radiation treatments for cancer. Most services now are housed in the existing hospital and off-campus sites such as Doctors Park off South Mount Auburn Road.

Hospital leaders said the facility will provide about 70 new hospital jobs and hopefully attract more top physicians to practice in Cape Girardeau.

Steven Bjelich, president and chief executive officer at Saint Francis, said the groundbreaking ceremony marked six months of planning and input from physicians, nursing staff, professional staff and patients.

"This heart center will elevate the level of care by creating a holistic, patient-safe environment where physicians and nurses can be provide compassionate, comprehensive care in a healing environment," Bjelich said. "Our facility is quite unique and is the largest investment we have made by far during the last few years. It's a very exciting project for us to undertake.

"The most important aspect is that we want to improve the ways we treat heart disease and cancer," he said. "And that's a reason why we are building a dedicated facility to serve the patients' and families' needs."

bblackwell@semissourian.com

335-6611, extension 137

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