By Gage Vota
For The Intelligencer
St. Clairsville – WVU Medicine broke ground on its future Community Hospital in St. Clairsville on Wednesday morning.
The $56 million investment in local health care will be an inpatient hospital with a 24/7 emergency room, large outpatient practice, primary care, lab and subspecialty care.
“We really want to make it a destination point for healthcare, that kind of a one-stop shop for folks,” Wheeling Hospital CEO Doug Harrison said.
He added that the Ohio River has never divided the Ohio Valley and WVU Medicine serves both the Ohio and West Virginia sides of the community.
“If you look at Wheeling Hospital and the patients that that we serve on a daily basis, about 40% of the patients that we see every day are from Ohio. That’s a large patient population, so when we started to look at that, we knew we needed to do something in the state of Ohio, and then we found this site location and began the planning and development for what we’re breaking ground on today,” Harrison said. “We like to say that the river and that state line should not define healthcare, and we want to be the local healthcare provider for the Upper Ohio Valley.”
He added that WVU Medicine is hoping for the end of 2027 as a completion date, but it may be pushed to the first couple of months of 2028.
Belmont County Commissioner JP Dutton said that the hospital will be a wonderful addition to not only St. Clairsville but the county as a whole.
“This is an exciting day not only for Belmont County, but I think for the entire Ohio Valley, it’s another great announcement,” Dutton said. “I think that it has impacts on both sides of the river, but particularly here for healthcare access.”
He added that there have been challenging times recently in terms of health care access in the Ohio Valley.
“I think this is an example of a lot of true commitment from, in particular in this case, WVU Medicine, to expand access to healthcare in the Ohio Valley, and that’s a tremendous thing. It’s very important for a community to have that type of access,” Dutton said. “I mean, anytime that you can see a $56 million investment happening in your county. That’s a really good day, right? Those days don’t happen every single day, and those investments take time to develop as well.”
He added that every day community leaders are working as a community to try to lay the groundwork for future development.
“Those things aren’t always headline grabbers, obviously, but it’s the culmination of what we’re doing every day,” Dutton said.
WVU Medicine Wheeling Hospital President and Board of Directors Chairman Joshua Jefferson added that Wednesday’s announcement is more than just a significant investment in the community.
“It’s a commitment by WVU Medicine to provide excellent care, straightforward and improved access to our friends and neighbors when they need it,” Jefferson said. “WVU Medicine’s here because care knows no boundaries, and the Ohio Valley residents have known that as a fact. We are honored to be in this community and call St. Clairville our new home.”
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