Published: January 23, 2008 09:02 pm         

Clara Fairbanks personnel will move into Hux Cancer Center in April

TERRE HAUTE — Clara Fairbanks personnel are looking longingly at the new Hux Cancer Center, waiting for mid-April to arrive. That’s when Clara Fairbanks Center for Women is expected to move into new quarters.

“The new center is designed for better workflow,” says Clara Fairbanks Manager Lydia Kruse. “Where we are right now was never designed for a mammography center. We were just put here” when Union Hospital and AP&S Clinic merged their mammography facilities.

“We’ve been in this little bitty building since October 1996,” Kruse says.

Clara Fairbanks personnel have been involved in designing the new facilities, which will include a larger waiting area, better flow and the ability to do more mammograms each day.

The current lobby has room to seat only nine people. If three women bring their husbands, “you can only have three women at a time.” The lobby in the Hux Cancer Center will have seating for between 21 and 25 people.

In addition, “each mammogram room will have two dressing rooms attached to it. Now, some women have to sit in a room in their capes and wait,” Kruse says.

Hours for Clara Fairbanks are 7 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. Monday and Wednesday through Friday, and 7 a.m. to 7:30 p.m. Tuesday.

“The later hours [on Tuesday] are to help women who have jobs and can’t get in during the day,” Kruse says, adding that the late hours are restricted to screening mammograms. Diagnostic mammograms are done during regular daytime hours and “every lady who comes in for a diagnostic mammogram will know the results before she leaves.”