Hospitals vie to build cancer site Coalition proposes Wells treatment center

WELLS – A coalition of hospitals from York County and New Hampshire contends that its proposal to build a cancer treatment center in this town warrants reconsideration.

“I believe we have a great program and a great proposal,” said Jud Knox, president of York Hospital.

York Hospital teamed up with Goodall Hospital in Sanford and Wentworth-Douglass Hospital in Dover, N.H., to propose the creation of a center dubbed York County Radiation Therapy Collaborative.

However, a unit of the Maine Department of Human Services this week recommended approval of a competing proposal for the Cancer Care Center of York County, which was submitted by Maine Medical Center of Portland and Southern Maine Medical Center of Biddeford.

Officials say there’s a need for a cancer center in southern Maine aside from those operated by Maine Medical in Scarborough and Wentworth-Douglass Hospital in Dover.

The certificate-of-need unit of DHS pointed out that both Maine Medical and Southern Maine Medical are accredited by the American College of Surgeons Commission on Cancer as “multidisciplinary cancer programs,” according to Newell Augur, the agency’s spokesman.

Moreover, Maine Medical is “approved as a teaching hospital cancer program,” Augur said.