T-L Photo/SHELLEY HANSON SIGNAGE AT East Ohio Regional Hospital’s office building on Friday notes the Black Lung Clinic was located inside the main hospital building.

MARTINS FERRY — With the Oct. 8 closure of East Ohio Regional Hospital also came the closure of the only local black lung clinic for coal miners in the region.

The Respiratory & Occupational Lung Disease Clinic at EORH provided lung testing for miners and people in other jobs who may be suffering from lung diseases because of exposure to coal dust or other occupational hazards. If a miner tests positive for the disease, the clinic helped them apply for state or federal black lung benefits.

However, when EORH was closed by Alecto Healthcare Services, the clinic also closed. There are other clinics where miners can seek help, though they are not close by.

Rick Altman, United Mine Workers of American District 31 International vice president, said miners can seek help at a clinic at Genesis Healthcare System in Zanesville, Ohio, and another clinic, Lungs at Work, in McMurray, Pa. Both clinics are about an hour’s drive from Martins Ferry.

Altman said there are other local medical facilities working on opening a clinic to serve those in Eastern Ohio and the Wheeling region.

“The ladies that were at East Ohio, they are trying to start up a clinic. Reynolds Hospital also is looking to start up a clinic. We tell our miners — it’s a drive for them — that they need to either go to Zanesville or McMurray, Pa.,” Altman said on Friday.

Altman noted miners in the Fairmont, W.Va., area are often referred to Cornerstone Care in Mount Morris, Pa., for state black lung benefits.

In September, Dr. David Hess, president and CEO of WVU Medicine Reynolds, said a black lung clinic, operated previously by EORH and Ohio Valley Medical Center at EORH, is going to be re-established at Reynolds.

Grant funding for such clinics comes annually from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. According to DHHS, the clinic at EORH served the counties of Belmont, Carroll, Columbiana, Harrison, Jefferson, Mahoning, Monroe, Stark, Tuscarawas, Washington in Ohio, and the counties of Brooke, Hancock, Marshall, Ohio, Tyler, Wetzel in West Virginia.

In its “Black Lung Clinics Program 2017-20 Cohort Snapshot,” the DHHS gave high praise to the clinic at EORH when it was still in operation. It was one of 15 operating in the United States.

Altman described the need for a black lung clinic operating in Eastern Ohio as “monumental.”

“First off, black lung is on the rise — which is sad with the technology we have today, with everything we can do with the control of dust,” he said.

“This is creating a need not only for better legislation, but also is a creating a need for medical facilities that can accurately test and people who are qualified to read the X-rays so people can be properly diagnosed,” Altman added.

Altman said more than 100,000 people have died in recent years due to black lung diseases.

“This is not counting those not being diagnosed,” he added.

Altman said regarding opening a new clinic, “the sooner the better.”

“It is hard to get black lung benefits. Trying to get federal (aid) is even harder to get,” he noted.

Martin Kramer, spokesman with the Health Resources and Services Administration, an agency within the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, said Friday that miners who were being served by the clinic at EORH are being referred to Genesis.

“Genesis Healthcare System is the other Black Lung Clinics Program grantee in Ohio. Genesis serves contiguous counties and so miners can continue to seek care locally within the State.

“Genesis Healthcare System also possess the resources and desire to serve displaced miners with comparable care. Furthermore, as a fellow state of Ohio recipient, Genesis Healthcare System also has working and collegial relationships with stakeholders and mines in the area. HRSA is currently in the process of transferring the remaining grant funds from Alecto Healthcare Services to Genesis Healthcare System.”