FAIRMONT – The drone of traffic on nearby Interstate 79 created an appropriate soundtrack for the Mon Health System ribbon-cutting ceremony here Wednesday afternoon.
Said ribbon, in this case, was attached to Mon Health’s multispecialty clinics building, the newest neighbor in South Fairmont’s I-79 Technology Park.
The park, home to the region’s burgeoning high-tech industry, overlooks the highway, which bisects the city.
Those traffic sounds factored in because Marion County residents have been long accustomed to commuting for their medical care.
Said commute, in this case, meaning a 20-minute run to Morgantown on that nearby highway, almost always for doctor appointments and most definitely for hospital stays.
It doesn’t always work, however, if a person doesn’t have reliable transportation, or if a snow storm suddenly sweeps in.
Or, if there’s road construction or a bad wreck.
For years, Fairmont General, the city’s lone, full-service hospital, floundered financially after languishing through a handful of corporate owners with no real ties to the city or the county, other than the latest acquisition.
Nick Fantasia said it all scraped bottom for him last year.
Fantasia, a local businessman and civic leader, is now president of the Fairmont Regional Healthcare Foundation, which grew out of the similar organization of the now-defunct hospital.
“It wasn’t too long ago that we were at a cusp of darkness,” he said, recalling those days.
He’s talking about when the hospital’s then-owners, in bankruptcy, shuttered the place during the pandemic’s first surge in late 2020 – leaving patients without beds and workers without paychecks.
In days’ since, WVU has made medical inroads to Fairmont and Marion County along with Mon Health – and Fantasia said he likes that prescription.
“Now, when we look at the investment of health care in Marion County, we’re seeing true leadership.”
WVU is now overseeing operations of the former Fairmont hospital.
And Mon Health System is also completing construction of a “small-format” hospital – 10 beds, 24-hour emergency care, behavioral health services – in Middletown Commons complex, which is right down the road from the technology park.
That facility is expected to open around November or December.
Lasting care
Wednesday’s ribbon-cutting at the Mon Health clinic, meanwhile, also featured remarks from Mon Health President and CEO David Goldberg and Roman Prezioso, the former state senator and current chairman of the Mon Health Medical Center Board.
Both stressed the importance of having quality health care with convenience. That, plus longevity, while truly making local connections with patients, said Dr. Brad Warden, who also spoke.
The Mon Health cardiologist is board-certified in both.
In 1960, his father, the late Dr. Herbert Warden, who helped pioneer the nation’s first heart bypass procedure, was recruited to WVU’s then-new medical center, where he immediately went to work, repairing hearts damaged by rheumatic fever.
He could have gone anywhere, but he chose to stay, his son said.
“You know, I still run into his patients,” Dr. Brad Warden said after the ceremony.
“These are people he replaced valves in 40 years ago. They still come up and want to talk to me about him. He took the time to know them, and that means a lot.”
Dr. Lisa Flower was happily talking about not taking the time – as in, enjoying the convenience of having streamlined services, self-contained, in the clinic.
Flower is a Marion County native who shares a practice with Dr. Marilyn Bonfilli, and they moved into the building in August, after years of working out of a small, narrow facility in Fairmont’s Westchester neighborhood.
“I don’t have to send patients out for an EKG,” she said. “Now, I can just send them down the hall.”
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