Community Cancer Center History

A Brief History of the Community Cancer Center Capital Campaign

By the time a feasibility study was complete in February of 2006, development of a local cancer treatment center in Marshall has been discussed off and on for several years. Area residents had been asked Fitzgibbon Hospital administrators on several occasions if it would be possible for their community hospital to provide treatment locally.

Knowing that there are a great number of cancer patients within the Fitzgibbon Hospital service area, hospital administrators and the Board of Trustees decided that researching the feasibility of a cancer treatment program was the logical next step with regard to the healthcare services we provided at the organization’s South Highway 65 campus in Marshall, Missouri.

In October 2005 the radiation oncologists from Missouri Cancer Associates in Columbia agreed to provide professional services for the program and pledged their support of the project.

With that support in mind, the Board of Trustees authorized a feasibility study, which was conducted in December of 2005. In February of 2006, a report was presented to the Board recommending that there was support in the community for a capital campaign to be established to develop funding for a cancer program at Fitzgibbon Hospital.

With the cost of the cancer treatment center estimated at $4 million, the hospital decided to ask the community to help raise the funds needed for the construction and equipping of the facility as well as implementation of the cancer treatment program.

By summer of 2006, a capital campaign was well underway with volunteers from across the region doing their part to make the dream come true. After two and one-half years, under the leadership of a Campaign Committee made up of area leaders, the community had raised the $4 million and the rest, as they say, is history.

Ground was broken at a special ceremony held on March 24th, 2009, and the official dedication celebration for the Community Cancer Center was held on September 22nd of the same year. On October 1, 2009, the staff greeted its first patients and the Community Cancer Center was officially open and ready to serve.