Martins Ferry Hospital Shuttered

(EORH Facebook image)

For the second time in six years, Eastern Ohio Region Hospital has closed. A sign posted on the entrances doors Thursday night was the only official notification of the closure.

In recent weeks, employees were not paid after losing health insurance coverage earlier in the year.

In recent months the hospital’s long-term care and skilled nursing division were closed. Last week the public pharmacy was also shut down.   

In the fall of 2019, former owner Alecto of the now demolished former Ohio Valley Medical Center in Wheeling and EORH were closed due to operating losses.

Two years later the facility was reopened by Dr. John Johnson, a psychiatrist, who was the founder and CEO of Access Ohio, one of the state’s largest independent behavioral health centers, as well as owner of Access Hospital, a 110-bed impatient facility, according to a feature in the Wheeling News Register by Shelley Hanson.

At that time, he also owned and ran “primary care centers, substance abuse and residential treatment facilities” as well as telemedicine and healthcare technology enterprises, Hanson wrote.

In 2012, he purchased the 11-storty former Wheeling-Pittsburgh Steel headquarters in Wheeling with the intention of converting it into apartments. That project never got off the ground.

Public officials from the city of Martins Ferry, Belmont County and state legislators are currently seeking solutions to return medical care to the county’s largest city.

 The hospital was founded in 1906 as Martins Ferry Hospital.