Since WVU Medicine entered the picture at Wheeling Hospital, the health system and the Diocese of Wheeling-Charleston have worked wonderfully together to keep pushing medical care in the Ohio Valley forward. That partnership was on full display Friday when WVU Medicine and the diocese jointly announced a $10 million gift through the Wheeling Hospital Foundation for WVU Medicine’s upcoming regional cancer center.

That gift also led to the center’s name: The WVU Cancer Institute St. Joseph Regional Cancer Complex.

The money for that gift came from the Wheeling Hospital Foundation, itself a joint WVU Medicine-diocese endeavor. The foundation is funded in part by the diocese selling Wheeling Hospital’s equipment to WVU Medicine when it took over the hospital, as well as revenue from WVU Medicine’s lease with the diocese for the hospital’s building and land.

That WVU Medicine Wheeling Hospital would retain its Catholic identity was a key component in the diocese’s agreement with WVU Medicine. This gift, along with the cancer complex’s new name, made sure that relationship remained strong.

According to the Most Rev. Mark Brennan, Bishop of the Wheeling-Charleston Diocese, St. Joseph is the patron saint of the Catholic Church, the diocese itself and the chapel in Wheeling. A statue of St. Joseph sits outside the main entrance of WVU Medicine Wheeling Hospital and the Sisters of St. Joseph were integral in the hospital’s175-year history.

“Since 1850, Wheeling Hospital has served this market under the leadership and guidance of the Wheeling-Charleston Diocese,” WVU Medicine Northern Region President Douglass Harrison said. “For 175 years, this hospital has served this region, and we’re very proud of our Catholic heritage and Catholic background.”

The association between WVU Medicine and the Wheeling-Charleston Diocese has done wonders for health care in the Ohio Valley already, and this donation shows there no signs of that stopping.