Valley Cancer is expected to be fully operational with its $8 million state-of-the-art treatment center within two to three months in Spreckels Park.

Construction of the 32,000-square-foot facility on nearly three acres of land located near other medical offices began over a year ago that  involves three separate buildings – one, an imaging center that is already open and operated by Doctors Hospital of Manteca and a second reserved for medical offices.

The third and main building now nearing completion in Spreckels Park is two stories high and is designed to offer medical oncology and chemo therapy services.  A concrete vault with six-foot-thick walls on the west side of the building now houses a linear accelerator and other state-of-the-art radiation equipment.

Dr. Amarjit Dhaliwal, M.D., has spearheaded the development of the oncology center that is designed to serve much of the South County.  He has been in practice with Dr. Robert Levy for the past 10 years associated with the Modesto based Valley Cancer Medical Group.  Both physicians have routinely come to Manteca serving their patients living in the South San Joaquin County areas at Doctors Hospital where they have been on staff for a number of years.

Both Dhaliwal and Levy will be seeing patients at the new facility.

Dhaliwal said that in surveying the Manteca medical community, he found that doctors were and continue to be very supportive of the project.  He further noted that 70 to 80 percent of their patients are on Medicare – mostly in their later years.

Their patients who had to previously go to Modesto or to Stockton for a specialized cancer treatment facility, may now stay in Manteca for their chemo therapy and radiation treatments, Dhaliwal said.

The $8 million cost of the facility came in as a very low bid that was less than half of what it would have been with a healthier economy eight years ago, the doctor explained.

Dhaliwal recalled that Doctors Hospital had studied the marketing aspect of the center and its importance to the community through a consultant three years ago.  The need for a cancer center locally was confirmed through the results of the study, he said.