Newark Hospital Continues Rebound With Cancer-Fighting Upgrade

NEWARK, NJ — A Newark hospital recently got a new tool to help it wage the war against cancer: a “linear accelerator” that can deliver high doses of radiation within a millimeter of accuracy.

According to Saint Michael's Medical Center, the hospital now has a “top-of-the-line Varian TrueBeam linear accelerator” that will be able to deliver radiation therapy “much more accurately than other devices.”

Saint Michael’s administrators said that the TrueBeam is a linear accelerator capable of killing cancer cells of all types, including prostate, lung, brain and breast. What makes the device so sophisticated is that it can deliver radiation with pinpoint precision, hospital administrators said.

Shravan Kambam, the medical director of Radiation Oncology at Saint Michael's, said that the device will allow the Newark hospital to perform stereotactic radiation therapy, which can target very small tumors in the brain and early lung cancers with much higher doses of radiation while sparing nearby healthy organs and tissue.

The TrueBeam also has built-in imaging capabilities that allows doctors to capture a CT scan of the treatment area to see whether the tumor has shifted before actually delivering radiation, Kambam said.

The new linear accelerator is the latest in a series of upgrades undertaken at the 358-bed medical center since it was purchased by Prime Healthcare in May 2016 after a protracted approval period by the state that forced the hospital to seek bankruptcy protection.

The deal came more than three years after Prime Healthcare applied to purchase the financially struggling hospital, and included a detour in U.S. Bankruptcy Court and a second round of bidding that drove up the final sale price to $62 million. The process was complicated by a report that recommended Saint Michael's be closed as an acute care hospital and converted into an ambulatory center.

As part of the deal, Prime Healthcare agreed to keep the hospital open as a full service acute care and outpatient facility providing all of its existing services for a minimum of five years, hire substantially all 1,400 hospital employees, maintain or increase current levels of charity care, and maintain existing health insurance contracts.

In addition, Prime agreed to invest $50 million to upgrade technology, services and continue to modernize the hospital, the statement read.

• See related article: St. Michael's Medical Center Sale Approved: One Hurdle Left, Newark
• See related article: Bankruptcy Court Approves Sale Of Newark's St. Michael's Hospital
• See related article: St. Michael's Hospital Sale Gets Final Approval, Newark Stakeholders Celebrate

Since then, the hospital has made a “full recovery” according to administrators, investing more than $21 million in medical equipment and upgrades such as new monitoring devices throughout the hospital, upgraded cardiac catheterization laboratories and new systems for electronic health care records.

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File Photo: Saint Michael's Medical Center