Capito checks on neighborhood hospital
WHITE HALL —– It was a busy day in the neighborhood Monday morning, in this bustling commercial district just south of Fairmont in outlying Marion County.
Bulldozers and dump trucks moved earth in and around the under-construction Middletown Commons retail complex, while other work crews did last-minute tweaks on the region’s newest hospital, which is set for its ribbon-cutting next month.
The sign over the emergency room entrance read, “EME____NCY,” at Mon Health Marion Neighborhood Hospital, but the facility is all but ready to see its first patients, administrators said.
When that happens, get ready, Sen. Shelley Moore Capito, R-W.Va., said.
Capito, who dropped in for a brief tour, said the newest Mountain State arm of the Mon Health System could end up being an example of how to deliver health care in places that traditionally do not have medical options or access.
The Mountain State, she said, traditionally means lots of people on Medicare and Medicaid who often live further out and can’t get there from here, easily.
“It could be a role model for rural areas,” she said. “It could be a lifesaver.”
Dr. Chris Edwards happily agreed with that prognosis.
He’s a Mon Health emergency room physician who will help staff the facility.
By industry standards, Mon Health Marion Neighborhood Hospital is a “small format” hospital, with just 10 beds.
Everything else, though, Edwards said, makes for a big wallop, in a big way, in a place that was “hospital-poor” for decades.
For several years, the now-former Fairmont General — the city’s lone, full-service hospital — floundered financially. It languished under the umbrella of a host of corporate owners with no real ties to the city or county, save for the latest acquisition.
In late 2020, at the height of the pandemic’s first surge, that hospital’s then-owners shuttered the facility, leaving patients without beds and workers without paychecks.
Fairmont is equidistant from Morgantown and Clarksburg — 20 minutes north or south on Interstate 79, respectively — and both cities are home to medical hubs offering the full range of care.
A lot can happen in 20 minutes, though, Edwards said.
Especially if someone has just suffered a stroke, the physician said. Or if someone has been pulled from a tangle of metal in a bad car wreck.
The new facility, he said, can treat everything from asthma attacks and strokes — to head injuries, broken bones and overdoses.
More importantly, he said, echoing the senator’s “lifesaver” comment, the hospital will be able to nurture and sustain patients who need the critical care they might only be able to get in Morgantown or Clarksburg.
That means no critical loss of minutes, waiting for the ambulance or HealthNet.
“We can treat whatever walks through the door,” he said. “And we can get you stable, if you need to go the bigger hospital down the road.”
There’s also the elephant in the ER, he said.
COVID-19.
Some medical-watchers are already predicting another surge in January and February. The facility in White Hall, the physician said, will offer an avenue of care that previously wasn’t there.
Meanwhile, Mon Health President and CEO David Goldberg said he’s already cleared an avenue on his day planner for Dec. 9.
That’s when he’ll help take part in a special procedure at the Marion County hospital: The snipping of that aforementioned ribbon.
“We broke ground last December,” he said. “And here we are.”
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