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The West Virginia Encyclopedia
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The West Virginia Encyclopedia
Mon Health is a network of affiliated health care facilities located across northern and central West Virginia. In 2022, it merged with CAMC under the umbrella of Vandalia Health to become the state’s second-largest health care provider and third-largest private employer.
Mon Health began as the Monongalia County General Hospital, which in 1923 opened in a portion of the county poor house on what is now Elmer W. Prince Drive in Morgantown’s Evansdale section. With the appointment of an independent board of directors in 1943, Mon General, as it was commonly known, became a non-profit entity.
Meanwhile, in the early 1900s, the Morgantown City Hospital had been founded at the corner of Willey and Prospect streets. Both hospitals were important not only to area residents in general but specifically in serving the thousands of miners who worked in the local coalfields. In 1937, Dr. E. Frank Heiskell invested his life savings to replace the city’s wooden frame building with a new fireproof steel, limestone, and marble facility, which he renamed Heiskell Memorial Hospital. It opened in 1939 and soon added a nursing school. In the 1950s, the Catholic Pallotine Order acquired the operations and renamed it St. Vincent Pallotti Hospital.
In 1972, Mon General merged with St. Vincent Pallotti to become the Mon Health Medical Center. The Center built a new facility on Morgantown’s J. D. Anderson Drive, dedicated on October 17, 1977. A major renovation between 2005 and 2009 added the five-story Hazel Ruby McQuain Tower, expanded the hospital to 189 beds, and converted the entire facility to private patient rooms. Over the years, it added special units for surgical care, a heart and vascular center, cardiac care, a cancer center, a family birth center, a women’s imaging center, endoscopy, orthopedics, a sleep center, a wound and vein center, and an emergency department.
The Mon Health System officially came into existence in 1982. In the 21st century, it has expanded its network, beginning in February 2014 with Preston Memorial Hospital in Kingwood. Mon Health replaced the former hospital with a new state-of-the-art facility in May 2015. In October 2017, Mon Health added Weston’s Stonewall Jackson Memorial Hospital. Then, in December 2021, it opened the small Marion Neighborhood Hospital in White Hall, near Fairmont. It also operates The Village at Heritage Point retirement community in Morgantown.
By 2022, Mon Health had become West Virginia’s eighth largest private employer. On September 1 of that year, CAMC and Mon Health announced their merger under the parent organization Vandalia Health Network. Since then, Vandalia Health has expanded into additional parts of the state. In January 2023, Vandalia/CAMC CEO Dave Ramsey commented that the organization views itself in direct business competition with WVU Medicine, the state’s largest private employer.
Mon Health Medical Center. About Mon Health.
Mon Health Medical Center. Our Story.
Jenkins, Jeff. CAMC, Vandalia Health Adding Hospitals to Health System. MetroNews. January 16, 2023.