Resident Asks Belmont County Commissioners To Restore Funding for Wheeling Health Right
Robert A. DeFrank Trending
ST. CLAIRSVILLE -- Lack of funding may cause a Wheeling-based clinic to stop serving more than 1,000 Belmont County residents.
Frank Papini of St. Clairsville visited the Belmont County Board of Commissioners this week to object to the county's decision to stop yearly allocations to Wheeling Health Right. Papini said the COVID-19 pandemic already reduced the Wheeling organization's fundraisers, and services it provides are valuable to Belmont County residents.
"There's been a significant cut from the United Way for their services down there," Papini said, adding he had spoken to Kathie Brown, executive director of Wheeling Health Right, and he is concerned this will mean treatment of Belmont County residents will cease. "If you prefer not to allocate any money to the Health Right, their only option is ... they will no longer treat anybody from Belmont County."
He said members of the United Steelworkers of America union often make use of these services.
"There's no other free medical clinic around here that I can think of," Papini said, adding the site handles a variety of issues such as medical, dental and eye care. "I think you should reconsider this situation. It is a dire situation. ... There's a lot of people in the county who are not going to be able to go over there and seek treatment."
Wheeling Health Right also treats chronic diseases such as diabetes, hypertension and heart disease.
"It's really important," John Waugh of St. Clairsville said. "They do wonders."
Commissioners Josh Meyer and J.P. Dutton said the commissioners have refrained from funding many nonprofits during the pandemic but would be open to a conversation with Wheeling Health Right. Afterward, Meyer said the last allocation provided to Wheeling Health Right was $25,000 in 2019.
"In 2020, when COVID hit, we made some cuts. They were one of the entities that we cut," he said. "We'd kind of gotten away from funding nonprofits and looking at our own budget, but we do understand the good services they provide."
"It's hard to draw the line," Dutton said. "It's not that we won't work with nonprofits in instances, but annual allocations (are a problem). ... How far do you go in terms of how many organizations you provide annual allocations to? That's why we made the determination. ... It's hard to figure out where that line was and say honestly providing annual allocations isn't something the county should be doing on a regular basis. It doesn't mean there aren't opportunities to provide funding at certain points."
"Of all the nonprofits in the county, there's nothing that provides medical services," Papini said.
Waugh said the services were literally life-saving for steelworkers during recent work stoppages.
Afterward Kathie Brown, executive director of Wheeling Health Right, said the organization provides services for about 1,500 Belmont County residents.
"They're in jeopardy if Belmont County doesn't give me funding, because I can't use West Virginia funding to pay for Belmont County patients. So I depend on that funding. I used to receive a great deal more United Way funding, but with the pandemic and businesses closing, their campaigns have gone down, so we've lost about $40,000 in United Way funding. So that really has hit us hard, and if we don't receive Belmont County funding, we can't serve Belmont County patients anymore," Brown said.
She added that Wheeling Health Right has not set any date for stopping services to Belmont County residents.
"We're going to keep seeing patients (for now), but we won't be able to maintain that if they cut off our funding."
Wheeling Health Right is located at 61 29th St., Wheeling.