Marysville resident Deb Forster, 52, says having a cancer center in Port Huron has been a blessing for her since she was diagnosed with breast cancer in January. She needed to have radiation therapy, which involved radiating the tumor for just a couple of minutes each day.
![]()
Deb ForsterHer Beaumont doctors recommended she have her radiation treatments done at McLaren in Port Huron, rather than driving to M-59, every day for six weeks.
"I would have been driving 45 minutes each way for a 10-minute treatment," she says.
Forster says it was really refreshing that Karmanos was respectful of her time, and having an appointment at 10:30 a.m. actually meant getting seen at 10:30 a.m.
Instead, she was able to spend her time in a new, comforting facility, and afterward take her dog, Ferris--a therapy animal--around visiting patients receiving chemotherapy.
"He puts smiles on the people's faces throughout the hospital," Forster says. "It helped me give back to Karmanos for everything they were doing for me."
She completed her radiation treatments May 3, but plans to return to
the hospital, with Ferris, to help others undergoing treatment.
"The people there are awesome, I am blessed," Forster says.
![]()
Deb Forster snapped a photo with her cancer center care team before leaving her final radiation treatment on May 3.
The decision to increase its investment in Port Huron is already paying dividends for patients like Forster and the larger community, according to leaders at McLaren Port Huron.
The expansion project, which began in July 2015, is about halfway complete and should conclude in December 2018. Renovation of the current hospital space will begin in 2019. Everything is on time and on budget.
The $161 million, 174,000 square foot expansion is doubling the size of the hospital. Expansion projects include a Karmanos Cancer Institute and a new patient tower.
Attracting top talent
Lynn Griffor, executive director of the McLaren Port Huron Foundation, is excited about the impact the new cancer center and patient care tower will have on the community, which is something she likes to think of as the opposite of a local “brain drain.”
![]()
Lynn Griffor, executive director of the McLaren Port Huron FoundationRather than losing the best and brightest young professionals to other metropolitan areas, Port Huron has become a magnet for them, she says.
Griffor notes that since the expansion project began, more than 80 jobs have been added at the hospital.
“We’ve already brought on board a physicist, two radiology oncologists, and a dosimetrist, all of whom are highly skilled people,” Griffor explains.
Griffor has seen the enthusiasm of the new hires first-hand, and says they are "amazing to work with," often going above and beyond the expected scope of their work.
This is just the beginning of McLaren’s staffing increase due to the expansion, though the exact scope of planned new hires isn’t available yet, according to Griffor. She is delighted the expansion is drawing great medical talent to the area and is heading toward on-time completion. She’s also thrilled by the outpouring of support from the community.
Donors make a difference
As head of the hospital's philanthropic arm, she's working to raise $5 million to support the expansion and renovation projects. So far, she's raised more than $2.5 million.
Griffor credits some of the fundraising success to the fact that donors are pleased their contributions are staying local.
Several items that were not part of the overall expansion budget have been funded by donors whose interest was piqued by helping local cancer patients and their families, such as artwork in the new Cancer Institute and a rooftop garden as examples of this “extra” donor generosity.
“They really liked the idea of their money staying local, helping local families,” Griffor says.
She’s also very proud of the solvency of the “Survivorship Fund,” also made possible through local fundraising efforts.
The fund provides assistance to cancer patients who struggle with the financial burdens of seeking treatment, including such basics as transportation to and from the Cancer Institute for chemotherapy.
“The Survivorship Fund helps relieve some of the stress and some of the financial pressure, so the patients and their families can focus on healing,” Griffor says.
Heading toward completion
While Griffor is occupied with the task of continuing fundraising efforts, Jack Belyea, McLaren's director of facilities, is also very busy. The patient care tower, which is part two of the expansion, is currently in its “steel phase.” belyea says it's the largest, most complex building project currently underway in St. Clair County.
![]()
Jack Belyea, McLaren Port Huron director of facilitiesThe patient care tower is slated for completion in the fall of 2018, and Belyea says he’s on schedule to meet that timeline. The mild winter, careful planning, the city’s cooperation, and dedicated work crews keep the project on time. Belyea’s especially proud of the fact that nearly half of the on-site workers live in the hospital’s service area, giving the local economy a boost, and adding to the crews’ pride in the project.
“Everything will be state-of-the-art, from top to bottom,” he says.
In the basement level will be a modern lab, and on the first floor, four top-notch operating rooms with 18 intensive care beds. Floors three and four will house 36 beds each, all with private rooms, a rare hospital amenity Belyea is sure patients and their families will appreciate.In total, there will be 186 beds (all with private rooms) once the expansion and remodel are complete.
The scale of the expansion may be monumental, but it’s the uniqueness of the patient care tower project that has presented Belyea and his crew, more than four dozen workers on any given day, the most fascinating challenges. Chief among them, Belyea says, is the need to close two of the three hospital entrances, which could have been a logistical nightmare. After all, Belyea says, the hospital needs to be open 24 hours a day, seven days a week, 365 days a year; it’s imperative to keep current hospital operations running as smoothly as the construction project itself.
“We learned from other projects across the country, how they handled some of the challenges of such a large expansion, and we were able to implement some of the things we learned,” Belyea says.
For example, it could have been very confusing and stressful for patients and their families to discover the change in hospital entrances. So Belyea introduced free valet parking at the one operational entrance.
“It really helped simplify things for people arriving at the hospital,” Belyea says. “Look, unless they’re in labor, having a baby, 
![]()
Free valet service is available at McLaren Port Huron hospital during construction. Photo by Heather Burtmost people don’t want to be going to the hospital. They’re worried, they’re in pain, they’re stressed. The last thing they want to worry about is where to park. We didn’t want family members or loved ones to drop someone off at the doors, worry about finding a place to park, meanwhile the patient is just standing inside the doorway, waiting for them.”
To reduce hassle and stress even more, the hospital also introduced a team of greeters inside the entrance. Greeters will guide a patient and their family to their destination within the hospital, providing an extra level of support and comfort when patients need it most.
Belyea isn’t certain the valet and greeter services will continue once the expansion project is complete, but he’d like to see that happen, since he’s received such positive feedback from patients on both.
Belyea is also looking forward: once the expansion is complete, he’ll begin work on the third phase of the overall project: a remodel of the existing facilities, which is another complicated, but rewarding project.
Though he’s overseeing all of the details of the expansion, big and small, Belyea credits the successes he’s enjoyed thus far on the crew, staff, physicians--anyone but himself.
“Without all of them, none of this would be possible,” he says.
For more information about the expansion project, including updates and a map of the hospital,
please visit: http://www.mclaren.org/porthuron/mclaren-construction.aspx