The year 2020 was one without equal, a call to dig deep to find the best within ourselves and to draw out the best in others. As City of Hope marks the one-year anniversary of the opening of City of Hope | Newport Beach — our first location in Orange County — our physicians and staff continue to take crucial steps in expanding access to our lifesaving treatments and scientific breakthroughs.
COVID-19 stopped a lot of things, but cancer was not one of them. Bringing safe and expert cancer care to Orange County has never been more important.
“A health crisis this unprecedented calls for extraordinary, compassionate cancer expertise because cancer does not stop during a pandemic,” said Annette M. Walker, M.H.A., president, City of Hope Orange County. “Now that Orange County patients have local access to our lifesaving treatments, they can feel secure knowing that all eyes are on their recovery, cure and safety.”
The bright spots shone through in a year filled with crises and sweeping changes. Here are some of the ways City of Hope | Newport Beach delivered on our promise to our patients amid the pandemic.
-
We continue to provide our patients access to highly specialized care without disruption, including time-sensitive surgeries, treatments and clinical trials.
-
We stand guard to protect our patients and staff from COVID-19. We have strict health screenings and protocols for anyone entering our facilities, expanded telehealth services to provide care from the comfort of patients’ homes, and highly-trained staff who understand this is an incredibly stressful time for cancer patients and are well-prepared to help them with their individual needs.
-
We are pleased to have saved our patients untold hours of commuting. We have so many resources in Orange County; you may be surprised to learn that nearly 20% of Orange County patients leave the area in search of advanced cancer care.
Don Nelson used to be one of those patients. Diagnosed with kidney cancer, he is thankful he can now see his world-renowned physician, Sumanta Pal, M.D., at City of Hope | Newport Beach, much closer to his Orange County home.
“Seeking help at City of Hope was the best decision we could have made,” Nelson said. “They are the reason I continue to successfully battle cancer and am alive today.”
Nelson said City of Hope doctors, nurses and staff always treat their patients with compassion.
“Dr. Pal isn’t just a great doctor, he’s an exceptional person,” Nelson said. “He truly cares, never tries to rush and sets a very high bar for other doctors.”
As proud as we are about what we’ve accomplished for our patients, 2021 has more in store. City of Hope | Newport Beach is the inaugural phase of our expansion into Orange County.
Right here, in our community, we are developing a regional network of highly specialized cancer care — comprised of City of Hope | Newport Beach and additional community practice sites — that will surround an 11-acre cancer campus of the future in Irvine. The campus will include a 190,000-square foot outpatient cancer center, opening in 2022, that will be connected to Orange County’s only specialty hospital focused exclusively on treating and curing cancer, slated to open in 2025.
Our vision is to provide the 3.2 million people of Orange County with state-of-the-art cancer prevention, early detection, pioneering treatment, clinical trials, personalized therapies and patient-focused programs, all closer to home. For those who are facing a cancer diagnosis, hope lives here, in Orange County — today.
Discover — and support — safe and expert cancer care, closer to home, at City of Hope | Newport Beach. Take a virtual tour of the Newport Beach location.