ÀÏ˾»úÖ±²¥

photo by: Niamh Coomey

Wheeling-Ohio County Health Department Administrator Howard Gamble, right, speaks during TuesdayÀÏ˾»úÖ±²¥™s health board meeting.

WHEELING — The Wheeling-Ohio County Board of Health is moving forward with facilitating the proposed split of street medicine group Project HOPE from the health department, an undertaking that will be complicated by the shift from public to private oversight.

After voting at their November meeting to begin looking into cutting Project HOPE loose, board members consulted the state ethics committee and state auditor and created a tentative framework for the move, which includes recommended next steps and areas of concern.

The move raises several challenges, namely the ethics and logistics of transferring public funds, staff and equipment, such as the custom-built Project HOPE mobile medical clinic valued between $150,000 and $200,000, to a private entity.

Led by physician Dr. William Mercer, Project HOPE has been pushing the split because they feel they have outgrown what the health department is able to provide in terms of staffing and resources.

Project HOPE currently has around $189,000 under the health department’s oversight. Though much is from private donors, this money became “public” when it was gifted.

In consultations, the West Virginia Ethics Commission highlighted that the board is required to ensure that these public funds “only be used for a legitimate public purpose,” and not benefit a private organization.

The State Auditor urged the health department against giving up oversight of these funds, but said they see no issue with directing future donations to the new organization that oversees Project HOPE.

Mercer’s team has pushed for Project HOPE to join Catholic Charities, a well-funded national nonprofit with a local branch in Wheeling. However, the framework document suggests that the selection process be conducted independent of current employees’ suggestions in order to remove the potential for conflicts of interest.

This calls for a bidding process in which interested organizations would need to provide an “official letter or offer to operate the program.” There would also need to be a signed agreement detailing how funds and equipment will be transferred.

The board has also created a draft application for organizations interested in acquiring Project HOPE.

The selected organization would hire and fire staff as it sees fit, as well as provide whatever insurance coverage they see fit. This would spell the end of public benefits and public insurance coverage for employees moving with Project HOPE.

Project HOPE would also need to remove all health department branding from its equipment and media. License coverage for the needle exchange that Project HOPE partakes in under the health department would also likely be removed upon the transfer.

The board is working as quickly as they can to work out the details of what the move would entail, but it is new terrain, Chairman John Holloway emphasized.

“We have no reason to hold up the process, but again, it’s just the uncertainty of things and having not done this before,” Holloway said.