A new UCLA Cancer Care center is preparing to open its doors to patients in Atascadero.
“We noticed there’s a significant need for care in North County," said lead oncology and hematology physician Dr. Brian DiCarlo.
The Cancer Care center in San Luis Obispo opened in 2019.
Dr. DiCarlo says 50% of the patients at that location have been traveling from North County San Luis Obispo.
“Especially the elderly population in the North County traveling to get their cancer care— [with] the 40-minute drive up and down the grade when you're getting chemotherapy and you're not feeling well, my feeling was that we really needed to open something up,” Dr. DiCarlo said.
According to the medical professional, it has been 15 years since there was an oncology center in North County San Luis Obispo.
Since then, the second closest center in the area was in Salinas.
Dr. DiCarlo told KSBY that the Atascadero location will be a full cancer program.
“We're going to have a full infusion center, and we're going to have two or three doctors there and a nurse practitioner," he said. "We're going to be able to treat all types of cancer. We give chemotherapy, biologic therapy, targeted immunotherapy, and all the therapies that are needed in the cancer treatment paradigm."
Loreli Cappel with the City of Atascadero reports that the center will help target health care, which is a concern that many residents have.
"As anyone knows on the Central Coast, [health care] is a challenge in the sense that we have a limited amount of doctors. It's hard to get in when you need to,” Cappel said.
Dr. DiCarlo says the center will eventually have more primary care doctors, adding that they expect to help between 100 and 200 patients weekly.
The center will officially open on July 28.
