The upcoming opening of the UofL Hospital South in Hillview is exciting.
Forty in-patient beds, with the ability to expand, plus a state-of-the-art emergency room, will be in operation in mid-March.
This has been a dream and a passion of many individuals over the past 20 years. It is fantastic that the hospital will become reality.
That is a life-and-death situation that will truly save lives every day.
But maybe an equally exciting -- and life-saving -- project is being proposed.
A request has been made to the General Assembly for the state to fund a $25 million rural cancer education and research facility in Hillview.
With Kentucky having the nation’s highest death rate of cancer, the project would play a role in trying to lower that number. Last year, the UofL Health Brown Cancer Center in Louisville treated 15,000 patients from South Central and Western Kentucky.
The proposed center would give rural Kentuckians a third place to go for cancer treatments. More importantly, it would help better educate physicians who would take that knowledge back to their home areas to improve the care for their patients.
It would also be a research facility where clinical trials could be performed.
At this point, the funding future falls into the hands of the legislators. State Sen. Michael Nemes has already put the project into the budget consideration.
What a major medical accomplishment it would be for Bullitt County to land such a prestigious facility. Many do not know that the county is home to many medical-related distribution facilities.
With the hospital and cancer research facilities, Bullitt County would indeed be on the map for all the right reasons.