November 6, 2003 -- This year the El Paso Cancer Treatment Center is celebrating it's 30 year anniversary. They are also facing one of their biggest challenges that could affect the thousands of patients they see each year.

Beverly Kidd- Cancer Survivor, "I did 6 months of chemotherapy for the treatment of breast cancer and then I did 7 weeks of radiation after that.

Beverly Kidd had her radiation treatment done at the El Paso Cancer Treatment Center years ago. It's the same place where she now works as an oncology nurse.

Unfortunately the center which has two El Paso locations could be cutting it's staff and services or shutting down completely. This may happen if Congress passes a Medicare Prescription Drug Bill.

Lisa Fox-Soreff- Practice Administrator, "To provide the funding for drug bill, they are couching that in for $16 billion of cuts in cancer care."

$954 million dollars in cancer care for Texas could be gone. That means part or all of the El Paso Cancer Treatment Center could be gone too. This is a full service center it includes chemotherapy and radiation therapy. It's got it's own radiology room where they perform x-rays, cat scans and on some days, pet scans.

Kidd, "With everything under one roof, you see the same people all the time and that makes people feel very comfortable."

And because the center provides all these services, it's the only one of its kind in El Paso. If the legislation passes the center would turn into a doctor's office.

Susan Guerra- Manager for Transplant and Research Services, "But if Medicare cuts that unfortunately we may have to face these people and say it's not covered, and these patients are on fixed incomes they're not gonna be able to affort it."

Fox-Soreff, "In affect cancer patients will have no where to go."

They may be able to go to the Hospital but with the 98% of cancer patients in community cancer centers, hospital may not be able to handle the influx.

In a hospital patients may loose the close relationship they may have with staff at community cancer centers.

Kidd, "The compassion that they have to take time and listen to the patients and help them work through issues, because it's not just given them chemo or radiation, it's seeing the side affects and seeing emotional side affects."

The El Paso Cancer Treatment Center is unique for a lot of reasons, but one is the extra program they offer patients. And those are most likely the ones to go first.

The center is the only one in the city that has a research and stemcell transplant program. This allows patients to participate in clinical trials that are usually done in cities like Dallas or New York, this way patients don't have to travel.

The patients not only benefit from the research trial but they also get their medication for free.