Photo by Joselyn King Wheeling Health Right hosted an open house Wednesday to celebrate the completion of renovations there over the past two years. Pictured from left are Steve Morgan, senior project manager with contractor Panhandle Cleaning and Restoration; Bob Contraguerro and Bob Contraguerro Jr., owners of Panhandle; Kathie Brown, executive director of Health Right; architect Vic Greco of the Mills Group; and Dr. James Comerci.

WHEELING — Wheeling Health Right celebrated its recent expansion project with a holiday open house and ribbon cutting Wednesday.

West Virginia lawmakers, as well as county commissioners from Ohio, Marshall and Belmont counties were on hand to tour the renovations and upgrades that have happened there over the past two years.

Kathie Brown, executive director of Wheeling Health Right, said the introduction of a drive-up pharmacy window opened last summer has been especially popular with clients.

“We thought it was a good idea. We didn’t know it was a great idea,” she said. “We didn’t know how great it would be.”

Health Right received funding from the McCamic Foundation for the drive-up pharmacy window. The foundation funds projects that help those with challenges, and the idea at Health Right was that persons with physical challenges wouldn’t have to get out of their cars and walk into the building, according to Brown.

“It’s turned out very well for those who just aren’t feeling well,” she continued. “They don’t have to sit in the waiting room. They can just drive through, get what they need and be on their way.”

And upgrades still are continuing even though the planned scope of the organized project is completed.

Initial expansion included the addition of a third dental operatory room at Health Right. Brown said next year work for a fourth room will begin.

“We do things here because people don’t have insurance, or don’t have the ability to go to the hospital,” she said. “We have dentists doing surgeries in the chair, so they are called operatories.”

Demand has been increasing, and at Health Right “we need as many chairs as we can get,” Brown added.

“We have the room ready, but we need a different style of chair,” she continued.

Also coming next year is a mobile unit that will provide Health Right the tools to travel into the community to treat the public.

“Dr. (James) Comerci and I have dreamed about that since I first started here in 1992,” she said.

Brown called completion of the expansion project “a gift” and “a dream come true.”

“The expansion has made such a difference. The dental was so necessary, and expanding it has been a very positive thing.”

The Wheeling Health Right expansion had initially been expected to cost $300,000. After the free clinic raised the first $120,000 needed for the work, the Ohio County Commission agreed in April 2021 to provide the remaining $180,000 needed for the project.

After this, Health Right received a donation for just over $8,000 from the Jeremy C. McCamic Family Foundation of Wheeling to assist in the building of its pharmacy drive-up.

Former U.S. Rep. David B. McKinley, R-West Virginia., also requested and received $350,000 for Wheeling Health Right through the Community Project Funding initiative in Congress. The additional money allowed for more “enhancements,” according to Brown.