Holy Rosary Healthcare Receives $6 Million Grant from Helmsley Charitable Trust to Support Construction of Comprehensive Cancer Center Serving Eastern Montana
Grant from The Leona M. and Harry B. Helmsley Charitable Trust will bring radiation oncology care to Miles City and surrounding communities
Miles City, Mont. – Holy Rosary Healthcare, part of Intermountain Health, is excited to announce that it has received a $6 million grant from The Leona M. and Harry B. Helmsley Charitable Trust to support the construction of a new comprehensive cancer center serving eastern Montana. The grant was announced at a groundbreaking celebration at Holy Rosary for the new center.
The 12,000-square-foot center will provide radiation, medical and surgical oncology services to address the needs of cancer patients in rural Eastern Montana. The project will eliminate distance and access barriers to care for the people living in the region. Currently, patients needing radiation oncology treatment may have to travel long distances to receive that care, potentially impacting their treatment plan and outcomes. This will be the only comprehensive cancer center within a 125-mile radius.
“The addition of a full-service cancer center is a monumental step forward for patients and their families facing cancer diagnoses in Eastern Montana,” said Walter Panzirer, a Trustee for the Helmsley Charitable Trust. “Helmsley is committed to improving access to health care in rural America. This project fully encompasses how a health system, community, and philanthropy can work together to make care close to home a reality and ensure patients can have the support of family and friends.”
“With the incredible support of the Helmsley Charitable Trust, our new cancer center in Miles City will create equitable cancer care for the region,” shared Karen Costello, president of Holy Rosary Healthcare. “Holy Rosary has a long legacy of providing high-quality cancer care, including medical and surgical oncology care, survivorship programming and other health and wellness services. The new center will expand those services and allow us to offer needed radiation oncology care to our patients in Eastern Montana.”
The new center will be built on the Holy Rosary campus in Miles City, connected to the hospital and all its services. The project will include adding the region’s only permanent medical linear accelerator, which delivers radiation treatments quickly and accurately.
The Helmsley Charitable Trust is one of the largest philanthropic organizations working in Montana, providing more than $102 million to date in grants to organizations working in rural health. Helmsley’s reach across Montana is wide ranging from Simulation in Motion trucks that travel the state providing hands-on training to healthcare workers to making automated external defibrillators (AEDs) available to every law enforcement agency in Montana. Helmsley has funded numerous equipment and telehealth initiatives at rural hospitals in Montana as well as statewide cardiac and stroke care initiatives and internal medicine and psychiatry residency training programs.
Construction began this spring, and the $17 million project is expected to be completed in late 2024. In addition to this generous funding, the project will be funded through capital investments by Holy Rosary and Intermountain Health. Community members interested in supporting the project can contact the Holy Rosary Healthcare Foundation at hrh-mt.org/foundation or at 406-233-4043.