ABERDEEN, S.D. (AP) - A $14.5 million cancer center in Aberdeen named for legendary college basketball coach Don Meyer and his wife is set to open next month.
A Jan. 21 grand opening celebration has been scheduled for the Don and Carmen Meyer Center of Excellence, which will be home to the Avera Cancer Institute, the American News reported (https://bit.ly/1RNLWGj ).
The center will be nearly triple the size of Avera’s current cancer facility and have state-of-the-art equipment and expanded services. Patient service is to begin Feb. 1.
Meyer was one of the winningest coaches in college basketball history, compiling 923 victories in 38 seasons at Northern State University in Aberdeen, Lipscomb University in Nashville, Tennessee, and Hamline University in St. Paul, Minnesota.
The native of Wayne, Nebraska, died in May 2014 after a long battle with cancer, at the age of 69. Doctors discovered the inoperable form of cancer in September 2008, when Meyer was critically injured in a car accident that led to the amputation of his left leg below the knee.
The cancer center project was announced in April 2013. Avera hosted a kickoff event in April 2014, which was Meyer’s last public appearance before his death. Construction began in October 2014. About two dozen workers are getting the facility ready for the grand opening, said Mark Papstein, a superintendent with JDH Construction.
A big chunk of the project cost is a $3 million piece of radiation treatment equipment. The center also will have a separate area for chemotherapy patients.
“We want to keep them as isolated as possible so that someone with a cough or the sniffles here to receive an antibiotic stays out of their air,” Avera Project Manager Abby Cogley said. “It’s for the safety of the patient.”
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Information from: Aberdeen American News, https://www.aberdeennews.com
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