MultiCare Health System has expanded its services offered at its Gig Harbor clinic, and plans to build a new facility in 2006.

Earlier this year, the nonprofit organization announced a $38 million investment in Gig Harbor, where it has operated a clinic since 1990. Currently, it has the only Urgent Care center in the area, and expanded hours will be considered in upcoming months.

Part of the expansion included the opening of an oncology clinic in February. Longtime resident Lauren Colman, M.D., whose family has deep roots in the area’s history, started seeing patients at the oncology center, first one of its kind in Gig Harbor. Colman is the MultiCare Regional Cancer Center medical director and the principal investigator for the Northwest Community Clinical Oncology Program.

A new, 65,000-square-foot facility is also planned for a 2006 opening across from the existing Point Fosdick location. The Outpatient Specialty Center will be part of a retail core being built in the area and will include a Women’s Health Center, a Women’s Spa, a Sleep Center and a Day Surgery Center.

“The people who reside in the Gig Harbor-Peninsula area want local access to health care services,” said Stephen Kramp, M.D., a family medicine physician at Gig Harbor MultiCare Clinic, in a statement that made the announcement. “The new services to be offered by MultiCare in Gig Harbor will deliver rapid access to urgent, specialized, and primary care on this side of the bridge.”

MultiCare Health System operates Tacoma General Hospital and Mary Bridge Children’s Hospital, among other facilities.

The expansion announcement came about six months after Franciscan Health System received approval from the state to build a new hospital in Gig Harbor. St. Anthony’s hospital, expected to serve residents of Gig Harbor, Key Peninsula as well as South Kitsap, will start construction next year and is expected to open in 2008. The state-of-the-art facility will have 80 beds, an emergency room, and outpatient services.

Franciscan, which owns St. Joseph hospital in Tacoma among other facilities, currently operates a medical clinic, a kidney dialysis center and a day surgery center in Gig Harbor.