PARKERSBURG – Building cancer care across the state is the focus of a new partnership announced Thursday at the WVU Medicine Camden Clark Medical Center.

The hospital’s Community Comprehensive Cancer Center was renamed the WVU Cancer Institute Camden Clark Regional Center with the new name unveiled during a ceremony attended by hospital personnel, representatives from WVU Medicine and West Virginia University officials.

Camden Clark President and CEO David McClure talked about the bringing together of two great cancer centers, the West Virginia University Institute For Cancer and Camden Clark’s cancer center.

“This will allow us to have a greater partnership with the university with the Cancer Institute, but also to extend our services throughout the Mid-Ohio Valley region,” McClure said. “We have had a great partnership over the last five years with all of the hospitals in the system.

“Our goal is to bring the specialists to the patients and help them get better.”

For more than 30 years, the physicians, scientists and staff at WVU have led the fight against cancer across West Virginia, said Albert Wright, president and CEO of WVU Medicine Ruby Memorial Hospital.

“They have gained a national reputation for excellence,” he said. “For the last 35 years, (Camden Clark’s) cancer center has been setting the pace for care here in the Mid-Ohio Valley.

“Today, the Camden Clark Regional Cancer Center is the first in the state, outside of Morgantown, to be associated with the WVU campus,” Wright said.

The WVU Cancer Institute Camden Clark Regional Center will be part of a statewide network of cancer facilities designed to deliver the highest level of care, officials said.

“This will be the first of many regional cancer institutes we are going to see across the state,” Wright said of similar institutes planned for Martinsburg and elsewhere in the state. “They will all see the same level of care and all providers with the cancer institutes will work together to provide continuity of care.

“The opportunity we have is really an obligation to improve the health of the state and the region. We want people throughout West Virginia and the region to turn to WVU for answers and the Cancer Institute will provide many of those answers,” Wright said.

The partnership provides resources and availability of doctors, provides many specialties within cancer care locally, new facilities are being built, investing in new technologies and they are expanding Ruby Memorial to be the basis of the health care system with expertise.

“We are doing this to build on our history and strengths to create something new and special for West Virginia. We want to be ‘the’ leader, not ‘a’ leader,” Wright said.

Dr. Hannah Hazard, director of clinical services and surgeon-in-chief WVU Cancer Institute, said the mission of everyone present was to give the best care possible to all of the patients.

“It is that simple,” she said. “I think it is important to be able to take care of the people from our state.”

The new partnership under the WVU Cancer Institute will further that goal.

“By teaming up with the excellent care team that is already in place here at Camden Clark we will be able to broaden and augment the care and the collaborative opportunities that we can provide patients in this region and elsewhere in the state,” Hazard said. “Our intent with this partnership is to develop a seamless network for our patients so there is a free flow of patient care from here to Morgantown and back again.”

The local center will have access to clinical trials being done in cancer care. Hazard said those trials are where many of the advances in care are made.

“It will further our understanding of this disease process, but also our care,” she said.

Hazard said local patients would have better access to bone marrow transplant procedures done in Morgantown that are not available locally.

Most important, the patient can stay as close to home as possible throughout their care so they can be around friends, family and loved ones, Hazard said.

“We are looking forward to working with Camden Clark,” Hazard said.

WVU President Gordon Gee said it was an honor for WVU to have this strong partnership with Camden Clark, Parkersburg and Wood County.

“The university belongs to every citizen in this state,” Gee said. “We want to make sure we are serving every citizen.

“Through this network we are building, we will be able to bring great health care to every part of the state. Camden Clark and the cancer center here are very important to that network,” he said.