KEALAKEKUA — A plan for expansion of the cancer treatment center at Kona Community Hospital is designed to bring more comfort and privacy to patients during a difficult time.
The state Office of Environmental Quality Control has given the green light on a 1,200-square-foot addition to the current facility. Once the hospital cuts through the red tape associated with the project, construction can begin on what will be a chemotherapy treatment wing.
The plan keeps the hospital’s capacity for the chemo treatments at seven chairs. Rather than trying to add to the 750 patients the center treats each year, the project will offer privacy and a dedicated restroom to those enduring the painful rigors of the therapy.
“Each chair will have a private space where the patient can watch TV, listen to music or look outside,” said Sanoe Kauhane, the cancer center’s director. “There will also be comfortable seating for that patient’s caregiver. Sometimes they have to be there for eight full hours. We want to make them as comfortable as possible.”
Patients are currently treated in a common waiting area with employee offices coming off of it, and patients use a common bathroom, so there just isn’t any privacy at this point, Kauhane said.
“This will pull patients off that common area into their own area where they won’t have to listen to random conversations,” said Judy Donovan, the hospital’s spokeswoman.
The facility will also provide an isolation room for the treatment and care of patients with diseases like antibiotic-resistant staph, according to documents filed with the OEQC.
The project hasn’t been without its hurdles. It took an entire year to gain OEQC approval, the hospital must still gain county Planning Commission approval before it can break ground, Kauhane said. Workers are set to begin moving trees and power poles this month. If the hospital decides to use a portable unit rather than a site-built structure, the unit could be installed by summer.
The project is funded by a $250,000 grant from the Kona Community Hospital Foundation.
Once complete, the addition will help pave the way for a more general expansion of the cancer center likely to start in 2017. That work will increase the visitor center and visitor education room, provide more patient rooms and space for a second oncologist, as well as navigators to help patients and families negotiate the emotional and medical challenges posed by the disease.