The numbers surrounding the Jack & Sheryl Morris Cancer Center in New Brunswick, one of just 13 freestanding cancer hospitals in the country, truly are remarkable.
The 12-story, 520,000-square-foot facility, operated by RWJBarnabas Health, includes:
- 9 state-of-the-art operating rooms
- 80 examination rooms
- 88 infusion beds
- 96 inpatient beds
- 100 new investigators (on 10 research teams) working out of state-of-the-art laboratory facilities.
But here is the number that may be the most impressive in the system’s fight against cancer: one.
While “the Morris,” which opened this summer, is beyond impressive in every way, it is just one of three cancer centers that RWJBH is in the process of opening around the state.
The Melchiorre Cancer Center at Cooperman Barnabas Medical Center in Livingston, a five-story, 137,000-square-foot facility that will open later this year, will be a state-of-the-art facility that serves as a hub for cancer care for RWJBarnabas Health in its Northern Region of the state.
Working in conjunction with the Rutgers Cancer Institute of New Jersey, the Melchiorre Center will help oversee and coordinate care in the region, including treatment at Newark Beth Israel Medical Center and Clara Maass Medical Center in Belleville.
Then there’s the five-story, 150,000-square-foot Specialty and Cancer Care Center being built on the 36-acre Vogel Medical Campus at Monmouth Medical Center in Tinton Falls.
Scheduled to open in 2027, the state-of-the-art facility will provide comprehensive same-day surgery, on-site specialty physician offices and advanced diagnostic imaging to patients throughout Monmouth County — and do it in a tranquil, park-like setting.
All of these facilities are part of RWJBH’s effort to “reimagine” cancer care. And they serve as a key reason why Mark Manigan, RWJBH’s CEO, has been chosen as a co-No. 1 selection on the first BINJE BEST: Health Care rankings.
Manigan is joined in the honor by Dr. Steve Libutti, the William N. Hait Director of the Rutgers Cancer Institute and designer of every aspect of the center, and Jack Morris, the chair of the Robert Wood Johnson University Hospital Board of Trustees and, with his wife, Sheryl, the the major donor to the Jack & Sheryl Morris Cancer Center.
Manigan said the Morris will serve as the center of an incredible RWJBarnabas Health campus in the city of New Brunswick — providing an anchor for care and research in the area that includes the Rutgers Robert Wood Johnson Medical School and, soon, the HELIX, a hub for innovation unlike any that has existed in the state.
“The Jack & Sheryl Morris Cancer Center helps tie everything together,” Manigan told BINJE. “We already take care of the sick and injured from Hudson County to Toms River. We already provide more charity care than any other system, times two. And we have been focusing on the social determinants of health long before anyone used that phrase.
“Now, in the middle of it, we’re engaging in cancer research and clinical care at the highest level. It’s really incredible.”
He oversees an RWJBH system that not only offers a top-ranked cancer program, world-class heart and lung transplant centers and the state’s most advanced burn treatment facility, but also is the largest provider of care for uninsured and Medicaid patients, investing in programs that improve the social determinants to health, including housing, food insecurity, transportation and education.
###
What never should be forgotten in a sea of responsibilities and duties connected to the Jack & Sheryl Morris Cancer Center, the RWJBH system and Rutgers University is this: Libutti is a world-class surgeon and researcher, internationally regarded as an expert in the management of neuroendocrine tumors and the recipient of funding from the National Cancer Institute for the past 25 years for research focused on developing novel cancer therapies.
###
A successful businessman with an insatiable desire to help others, Morris has turned that passion into a purpose: He and his wife, Sheryl, not only offered a transformative gift that helped create the country’s 13th standalone cancer hospital, Morris is working to ensure that RWJBH has the ability to deliver world-class cancer care throughout the state.
