St. Charles Opens New $65 Million Cancer Treatment Center in Redmond

For patients in north Central Oregon, a new Redmond cancer center is making care closer to home.

The St. Charles Health System this week is opening a new $65 million, two-story, 53,000-square-foot cancer center in Redmond, offering nine times the space of its current facility. The new cancer center will offer radiation, chemotherapy, surgery and other services, matching the capabilities of St. Charles’ cancer center in Bend 17 miles to the south.

It’s a big step for a rural health system where about 40% of cancer patients live in Redmond, Prineville, Sisters, Warm Springs, Culver and beyond, said Mari Shay, administrative director of cancer services for St. Charles. The new center will help ease the burden of commuting for people receiving daily or twice-daily treatment in Bend.

“Transportation is probably the biggest barrier that we see in our patient population here, because of the rural aspect that we support,” Shay told the Source in an interview. “We do spend a lot of time working with those outer communities to get their patients here. But some patients, it’s enough of a barrier that we unfortunately see patients forego treatment because they just can’t logistically make it work.”

The new treatment center was built in Redmond because it still needs to be in close proximity to other medical facilities, Shay said. It’s located along U.S. Highway 97, just south of the St. Charles hospital in Redmond.

Construction is complete after two and a half years. The new facility will be able to serve 300 patients a day, according to St. Charles. It features 36 exam rooms, a 5,000-square-foot chemotherapy infusion room with 22 infusion bays, three semi-private bays and one private infusion room.

The previous cancer clinic in Redmond offered only chemotherapy and visits with providers, but not radiation or surgery.

“We just don’t physically have the space,” Shay said. “We have a really small, 2,500-square-foot clinic here.”

Shay said that when discussions began in 2018 for a new Redmond Cancer Center, concepts were limited to adding radiation oncology, but with growth post-COVID-19, it became clear more services were needed.

The project was built with part of the $90 million in revenue bonds the hospital system secured in the fall of 2020 that were restricted for new construction.

Staffing a concern for nurses union

Staffing levels are a concern for the Oregon Nurses Association, a union representing about 1,200 nurses at St. Charles Bend.

Kevin Mealy, a spokesperson for the union, said St. Charles is pulling nurses from other hospitals to staff the new cancer center. Both the union and the hospital have said recent contracts raising nurse wages have helped stabilize a staffing crisis and decreased reliance on traveling nurses, but Mealy said that crisis hasn’t disappeared.

“Shuffling nurses from one hospital to another isn’t a staffing solution—it just shifts the problem,” Mealy said in an email.

St. Charles plans to use staff from the existing cancer center in Redmond, as well as nurses from Bend and Redmond, to staff the new cancer center, said Alandra Johnson, a spokesperson for St. Charles. She said the new facility will be “fully staffed to meet the needs of patients.”

“We increased staffing over the summer in response to increased patient need and our staffing is continually adjusted to ensure safe staffing and patient care,” Johnson said in an email.

Notable technology at the new facility includes a high-dose brachytherapy suite — localized cancer treatment through internal radiation — and a True Beam Linear Accelerator, which uses photon or electron beams to target and treat cancerous tumors, according to St. Charles.

St. Charles plans to hold a ribbon cutting ceremony April 16 at 4pm, with a chance to tour the facility, located at 180 NW Kingwood Ave. in Redmond.

This article appears in the Source April 16, 2026.