Cancer center opens in American Fork

AMERICAN FORK — There was no ribbon cutting, no brass band, no champagne.

The dignitaries were there, but when the revolutionary new Huntsman-IHC Cancer Center at American Fork Hospital was declared open for business, it was done with a moment of silence as those present held up stained-glass stars to symbolize the hope the new center will bring to cancer patients in northern Utah County.

Gov. Jon Huntsman Jr. said when he entered the new facility he could feel the hope it projected for those battling cancer.

"It's the hope you can keep going, the hope you can live to see another day," he said.

Huntsman, a former president of the Huntsman Cancer Institute located near the University of Utah, said the new center is the product of years of talks and coordination with Intermountain Health Care.

"It's a dream that's long been in the works," he said. "I'm so delighted to see it come to fruition."

The $3.9 million facility will provide radiation and chemotherapy treatment for residents of northern Utah County. Jon Huntsman Sr., the governor's father and founder of the Huntsman Cancer Institute, said the center is the first of its kind.

"Nowhere else in America, or in the world as far as we know, has anyone brought together a major cancer center and a respected hospital chain," he said. "This is a model for everywhere in America, and right here in American Fork is where it all began."

The center will combine the Huntsman Institute's research and knowledge with the treatment expertise of the largest hospital group in the state. Everything about the center, from the multimedia education center to the seven exam rooms, was designed with cancer patients and their families in mind.

The infusion room, where chemotherapy is administered, has a floor-to-ceiling window that looks out on the "Healing Garden." In the center of the garden is a bronze statue of a young boy sitting on a wall and pulling his little sister up to sit with him.

"(The statue) is very symbolic of what we try to do with cancer patients," said Lana Nelson, a hospital spokeswoman.

Colleen Terry, a Saratoga Springs woman who was diagnosed with Hodgkin's lymphoma exactly one year before the center opened, was one of the speakers at Tuesday's ceremony.