Bouquet: Newspapers regularly are criticized — sometimes with justification — for focusing too much on bad news and not enough on the good things happening in their communities.

This past week, however, had a very good development in the region that is well worth celebrating.

Marshfield Medical Center-Dickinson on Tuesday unveiled the new $10.6 million Regional Cancer Center, an 8,000-square-foot hospital addition that is only the second comprehensive treatment facility in the Upper Peninsula.

The center boasts state-of-the art equipment and a special area with private rooms where patients can receive infusion treatments while sitting in padded recliners capable of providing heat and massage if desired. Many of the rooms offer a view outside, with blinds that can be drawn if the person prefers to nap. All of the rooms have televisions. One room can have two people if they want to be together during treatments. In all, 13 patients can be accommodated at the same time, in a comfortable, healing environment.

The waiting area is in a similar vein, with a simulated fireplace — no concerns about heat in the summer — and comfy chairs in what feels more like a living room.

And the 2,300 square feet around the linear accelerator, added in 2021, was renovated as well, with a simulated nighttime sky with stars. That piece of equipment is used for radiation treatments.

The center will have a staff of about 30, some already working at MMC-D, some new. They hope to add a second oncologist to join Dr. Gustavo Morel.

It gives Iron Mountain — not exactly a major metro area — a means to offer more cancer treatment options closer to home, rather than having to send patients hours away to facilities in Wisconsin, even Minnesota or downstate Michigan.

Even more, the center will provide “access to cutting-edge cancer research, including clinical trials,” Morel, who has been practicing in Iron Mountain since 2001, said at the ribbon-cutting ceremony Tuesday.

With the opening of the cancer center, Wisconsin-based Marshfield Clinic Health System fulfilled the promise made to establish such a facility in Iron Mountain when it acquired the former Dickinson County Healthcare System in February 2022, part of a pledged $26 million capital investment over five years.

It’s probably fair to say that most, if not all, who live in the Upper Peninsula and northern Wisconsin know someone — family, friend, co-worker, neighbor, perhaps all of the above — who has battled cancer.

Many of those who spoke at Tuesday’s opening made note of those ties. Some, such as Shawn Hood, construction superintendent for project general contractor Gundlach Champion, are cancer survivors themselves; he beat non-Hodgkins lymphoma 13 years ago.

Hood said not having to travel great distances for treatment might give patients “the advantage they need to win the battle.”

Maybe that’s why donors already have the cancer center’s capital campaign to within $250,000 of what was seen as an “ambitious” $3 million fundraising goal.

State Sen. Ed McBroom, R-Waucedah Township, noted it wasn’t that long ago when the future of the hospital appeared in jeopardy. So it was good to see MMC-D come through not just “victorious” but expanding, McBroom said at the ceremony.

“Thank you for making this a stronger community,” McBroom said to MCHS and MMC-D officials and staff.

We agree, and look forward to seeing how this new regional cancer center strengthens and improves the level of care available in the Upper Peninsula and northern Wisconsin for years to come.