MORGANTOWN – Milan Puskar Health Right Executive Director Laura Jones admitted that there were significant concerns that the clinic would experience a sharp decline in patient numbers following its move out of downtown Morgantown.
After all, the clinic had spent more than four decades in the city’s center, including the last 23 at 341 Spruce Street.
But Health Right completed its long-awaited move to a location off Scott Avenue in April, and according to Jones, early returns show those concerns may have been largely unfounded.
“If you look at our post-move analysis, we were really concerned that our patient population would decrease. And, of course, it did in April. We were closed for two weeks and prior to that we were slowing down our caseload so that we could pack,” Jones said. “But as you can see, steadily, both May and June were consistently higher, and we had an unprecedented number of 39 new patients in the month of June. That’s unprecedented for the summertime …So this is really looking good. Our patient volume has increased.”
Jones said Health Right and its new neighbor, Hazel’s House of Hope, are in the very early stages of feeling out what the partnership between the two entities can be.
“We’re still stabilizing. I haven’t gotten everything out of boxes in my office yet. But I think in six to nine months, we’ll be doing really well,” she said.
On the other end of the spectrum, Jones said Health Right is continuing to see a “concerning” decline in the number of individuals utilizing its harm reduction program.
That decline dates back to more than a year before the move.
“Those numbers have gone down from a high of 121 encounters in February of 2025 to 66 encounters in June,” she said, noting seven individuals entered treatment through the harm reduction program in the first quarter of 2026.
Health Right has operated its LIGHT syringe access program since August of 2015.
Jones said she believes transportation to the program is an issue, but nowhere near the biggest issue it may soon face.
“The only bad news is that the federal government has decided that they’re not willing, most likely, to put a lot of money toward hard reduction in the future. So, we have to be concerned about that. They’ve already stopped allowing us to purchase fentanyl test strips and xylazine test strips, which is really something essential that our folks need,” Jones said. “And the fact that the federal government’s not happy with harm reduction means that our West Virginia legislature, who is always teetering on ending harm reduction, may have the fuel they need to make that happen. We will do everything in our power to try to persuade them not to do that.”
Jones laid out her concerns about the future of Medicaid, and her fears about what a shrinking, or potentially nonexistent, needle exchange program could mean locally in terms of HIV, Hepatitis C and other diseases.
And she also had something to say about roads – specifically the short stretch of road leading down to Health Right’s new home.
While Scott Avenue is often referenced as the location of Hazel’s House of Hope, and now Health Right, both are actually located off Ramada Inn Drive.
Ramada Inn Drive was built to serve the old hotel and is not in the West Virginia Division of Highways system. While the city of Morgantown annexed the HHH property into the city in 2020, the road was not included.
“Our portion of the road is in horrible shape,” Jones said, explaining Health Right has an estimate for $17,500 to correct drainage issues and repair that end of the road. “If there was a way that we could fund to get the road fixed, would that make it more attractive for the city to add this road to their list?”
Assistant City Manager Emily Muzzarelli said city staff would provide information on what standard the road would need to meet before the city would take it over.
Mayor Danielle Trumble said the conversation has been had many times in relation to Hazel’s House of Hope.
“The city manager and I have talked about it several times. We’re like, if you bring it up to city standard, if you get the drainage and the paving done, that’s a more attractive conversation to have,” Trumble said. “But with our current paving budget and all of the streets that are in terrible condition that are already ours, I think that it’s been a tough sell up to this point.”
