MORGANTOWN — Marion County’s three delegates rose on the House floor on Tuesday to decry the planned closure of Fairmont Regional Medical Center (FRMC) and plea for help to keep it open.
Delegate Mike Caputo informed his colleagues that the hospital’s owner, California-based Alecto Healthcare Services, will soon be issuing 60-day WARN notices to the hospital’s 600-plus employees.
Alecto bought what was then the 207-bed Fairmont General Hospital in 2014, following FGH’s 2013 bankruptcy filing, and changed the name.
Caputo said the hospital has served the community for 117 years. He reminded the House that Alecto previously closed Ohio Valley Medical Center in Wheeling and its sister, East Ohio Regional Hospital in Martins Ferry, Ohio, last September.
“It seems as though they like to go into a community, purchase their health care system, drain their resources, take the money and run,” Caputo said. Previously, Alecto assured them they were reorganizing and had no intention to close.
“These folks are bad actors. Obviously it’s not the first time they’ve done it. … How long can we allow people to take advantage of West Virginia without taking a stand?”
Community leaders and Alecto have met with WVU Medicine and Mon Health to try to find a solution to avoid closure, he said. People will find jobs but it will leave a health care hole. “It’s going to be real bad for our community and the people in it.”
Delegate Linda Longstreth said the governor needs to get involved, and Alecto needs to come back to the table to keep FRMC open.
Losing the emergency department, she said, will harm Marion residents who will need to travel to or be transported to facilities farther away. “We need an emergency hospital where we can save lives in our county.”
Like Caputo, she criticized Alecto for valuing profit over the needs of the community – the patients and employees. “Let’s get back to the table and keep these people employed.”
Delegate Michael Angelucci said that several months ago, Marion County Chamber of Commerce president Tina Shaw brought together community leaders to discuss the hospital’s possible closure. Panhandle Delegates Erikka Storch and Shawn Fluharty came down to talk about Alecto closing the two hospitals there.
Angelucci said that the City of Fairmont owned the hospital land and gave it to Alecto to save FGH form bankruptcy. “And now they’re shutting it down, taking 600 jobs with them. … My phone has been (ringing) non-stop all day from people begging me, ‘Please help.’
“Alecto is a bad actor, point blank,” he said.
Echoing Longstreth’s point about access to emergency care, he said, “People are going to die.”
Majority Leader Amy Summers, R-Taylor, worked at the hospital for 15 years. “This is truly a sad day for the people of Fairmont” and those connected to the hospital, she said.
She’s reached out the CEO and emergency department director of her current employer, United Hospital Center in Bridgeport, to ask them how UHC will absorb the 50 to 60 people per day FRMC’s emergency room handles.
“This is definitely a crisis that we’re experiencing in West Virginia,” she said.
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