When the University of Louisville asked the Kentucky legislature for funds to revamp Louisville's Jewish Hospital, the legislature responded with a yes, and according to state Senator Michael Namus, the caveat was that universal Health also purchase and complete the hospital in Bullitt County.

Now, the hospital is not only complete, but is expanding.

This week, officials broke ground on the U of L Health South Hospital Campus center for Rural Education and Research, Brown Cancer Center.

Details on that and tonight's look at medical news.

Once complete, this center will support oncology nurse and physician training, offer clinical trials of new cancer drugs, promote outreach and cancer screening and education, and host patient education programs, which will be focused on communities in central, South and Western Kentucky.

We know that cancer care can't be taken care of in just one location, although it's important that the community hospitals and rural hospitals do that.

We also know there's a difference in the academic care and the research care of patients, which is why this is so critical.

That next 30 minutes to get downtown for many is just they choose not to do that.

And our goal is to bring cancer research, our academic faculty to the people.

But what it really is, is the destination for many people.

Many people, when they heard the word cancer and thought there was it was over.

It's their road to recovery.

And I think in all the titles that we've said today, I've got to point out that, as someone from the sprawling metropolis of Bergen, my favorite word in this title is, is rural.

Because as someone who comes from a town with a thousand people in a four way stop and that's it.

What I like to do is make sure that we take this hope that has been mentioned here today, and meet people where they are, rather than the other way around.

And so making sure that we're meeting people where they are and helping them to get to where they want to be, regardless of their zip code, is so critically important, especially because health care is the foundation of a healthy economy.

So a lot of people are asking me, why are you focusing putting a cancer center in Bullitt County that's focused on rural Kentucky?

And the reason for that is pretty simple.

We need subspecialists to see the patients subspecialists who focus on one type of cancer.

All of those subspecialists currently live in Louisville.

I need the patients have access to the appropriate doctors, and that's why this location was so promising.

And then you throw on to that the fact that you have a brand new hospital here, which is so important for patients when they have bad side effects, that I thought this was an ideal location.

And we started talking a lot about it being focused on rural Kentucky.

And the reason for that is that a lot of the deaths that happen in Kentucky can be mapped to rural communities that don't have good quality health care access.

Cancer kills over 10,000 Kentuckians a year.

As I mentioned, that we track all this stuff and we have been number one for cancer related deaths throughout the past 15 to 20 years.

We're now number two.

And it's my belief that we're going to be number five in a few short years.

And more importantly, I think that in the next ten years, we're going to see a 50% drop in the cancer death rate.

And the way to do that is to increase access for rural Kentuckians.

And the best way to do that is to put a cancer center right here, right now.

The cancer center is set to open in the latter half of 2026.