Lee Health ushers in new era of cancer care at Gulf Coast Medical Center

A new era of cancer care is now in Southwest Florida at Lee Health’s new state-of-the-art in-patient cancer center at Gulf Coast Medical Center.

Dennis Bruens is the vice president of oncology and palliative care at Lee Health. He says, “Cancer care is not just one intervention; this is a journey that you go through for some time.”

It’s a journey Bruens knows personally, “My father died of lung cancer about 10 years ago.”

And because of that, he knows the value of making space for families and support systems when it comes to cancer care.

Now, the newly expanded regional cancer center at Gulf Coast Medical Center has more beds for patients – going from 45 up to 72.

It also has beds for family members.

“Here we have more physical room for patients to be here with their family,” explains Dr. Bianca Ferrari, medical director for LPG Hematology/Oncology at Lee Health. “We have furniture that allows them to sleep and have dinner with their loved ones.”

She says in addition to having better access to loved ones, medical teams from different specialties can wrap around and support them too. “It has been quite fragmented between all four hospitals that Lee Health operates on, and now we’re focusing everything here – centralizing everything here.”

So whether it’s a team of experts or loved ones, Bruens says the new expansion improves cancer care.

He adds, “Having this type of facility available here means that people don’t have to go anywhere else to get world-class care and stay connected to all of the people that are important to you.” So no one has to go through the journey alone.

The cancer center officially opens Wednesday.