TMC_CANCER_ANNOUNCE_6_13

Truman opens new cancer center

February 26, 2014  |  Mike Sherry  |  2 min read

The new Richard and Annette Bloch Cancer Center at Truman Medical Centers started treating patients this week, the hospital said Wednesday in a news release.

TMC announced the project in June after receiving a $2.3 million gift from the R.A. Bloch Cancer Foundation.

Annette Bloch’s husband, Richard, battled cancer for more than two decades before dying of heart failure in 2004. Richard Bloch co-founded the tax-preparation firm of H&R Block with his brother, Henry, in 1955.

At nearly 17,000 square feet, the new cancer center is more than triple the size of the previous unit at TMC.

Philanthropic support funded the entire $6 million project. Other major donors included the Hall Family Foundation and the J.E. and L.E. Mabee Foundation.

The hospital has scheduled a grand opening with donors, supporters and local officials for May, according to the release.

“The new area is such a calming, peaceful environment with just the right amount of natural light and open space, yet you still have that interaction with staff and other patients,” oncology patient Norma Steve said in the release. “It just doesn’t feel like you are actually in a hospital.”

 

Major Funding for Health coverage on KCPT provided by Assurant Employee Benefits and the Health Care Foundation of Greater Kansas City.

Tags:

Reading these stories is free, but telling them is not. Start your monthly gift now to support Flatland’s community-focused reporting.

Nick’s Picks | Messi, Jail, Buses, and More …

June 1, 2026

World Cup Team(s) Arrive It’s starting to feel real. The first World Cup team has landed in Kansas City. Defending champions Argentina touched down at KCI airport on Sunday and will begin practicing today at Sporting KC’s training facility in Wyandotte County. Much of the attention, of course, is focused on Lionel Messi. The soccer…

Related Stories

(L-R) Christina Hill and her grandmother, Lucy Wilkerson, pose for a photo with Christina’s kids, Hunter Hill Harris and Summer Hill Harris, at Lucy’s assisted living home in Grain Valley, Missouri. (Chase Castor | Flatland)

Caregiving Squeezes Households Between Young and Old 

Melissa Johnson knows her life is hardly unique. The Oak Grove, Missouri, woman cares for her infirm 72-year-old mother, who lives in her own home nearby.  She calls her mother daily. She brings dinner to her several times a week.  Johnson, who coordinates care with her aunt, a team of therapists, and a nurse, is…

Read More >
Rev. Tarris Rosell and sister Rosemary Flanigan

Feeding Tubes and Defibrillators

Let’s begin with two stories about the growing and important field of bioethics. The first is from Ryan Pferdehirt, the newly named Flanigan Chair in Bioethics at the Kansas City-based Center for Practical Bioethics. A hospital once asked him to consult on a bioethics case in which a son thought his desperately ill, hospitalized mother…

Read More >
People walk outside the Wyandotte County Public Health Department in Kansas City, Kansas. (Zane Irwin | Kansas News Service

After Tuberculosis Outbreak, Wyandotte County Parts Ways with Health Director

The director of the Wyandotte County Public Health Department is no longer with the agency, a spokesperson confirmed Tuesday. It comes after turmoil during the handling of the major tuberculosis outbreak, shown by emails obtained by the Kansas News Service. Elisha Caldwell had been head of the local health department while an outbreak of TB grew…

Read More >