PENDLETON — Pendleton’s lone outpatient radiation therapy center announced in a statement Tuesday, Jan. 14, it will close by the end of February.

Eastern Oregon Cancer Center at Pendleton opened in January 2020 and has served more than 1,000 patients in the region. However, due to increased expenses, wage inflation and low reimbursement rates from Oregon Health Plan and Medicare, costs have become too high for the center to keep its doors open, the announcement said.

According to Joan Sonnenburg, clinical operations director at the center, EOCC is the only place for radiation therapy in Eastern Oregon. The service area for EOCC covers Baker, Joseph, Heppner, Irrigon, Dale/Monument, and all the areas in between. Without the center, she said, patients will have to travel to Walla Walla, Tri-Cities, or Boise.

Letters to patients and providers about the center’s closure were mailed Jan. 9, Sonnenburg said. Radiation treatment and patient follow-up appointments will end by Feb. 21, and the last week will be spent ensuring patients have referrals to other providers as well as completing other final tasks.

“This is a very hard thing for our patients and referring providers who have come to appreciate and rely on this center,” Sonnenburg said. “It has been an honor to treat patients from Eastern Oregon here at our center.”

The centers’s parent organization Radiation Business Solutions, and investors in the operation made the economic decision to close. she said. The center has been seeking other entities to purchase or assume control of operations for about five months, but none have decided to take it over.

The center, next to CHI St. Anthony Hospital, collaborated with the hospital and its providers to offer radiation, versus the hospital’s chemotherapy cancer treatment. But the hospital has never owned any part of the for-profit treatment center, according to St. Anthony communications director Emily Smith, and did not step in when it went up for sale.

After the cancer center’s closure, patients and providers can obtain copies of their medical records by calling 866-353-0360.