WHEELING, W. Va. (WTRF) – Kathie Brown has been with Wheeling Health Right for 28 years.

Brown has seen the clinic grow from the ground up. And she’s proud to be part of it.

She says it’s not only a job — it’s a mission!

It is literally bringing health care, medicine, psychiatric help and dental care to thousands of people in the upper Ohio Valley every day. There’s not a day you leave that you don’t know that this clinic has made a difference in someone’s life.

Kathie Brown, Executive Director – Wheeling Health Right

Brown says Wheeling Health Right has evolved dramatically since its beginning.

When I started in 1992, it was a treat ’em and street ’em clinic. They’d open the doors at nine, everybody would herd in, and they’d treat them with whatever they could, whatever medicine they had. Documentation? As a nurse, I was astounded. There was none!

Kathie Brown, Executive Director – Wheeling Health Right

She says they’ve worked hard over the years to become a full-fledged primary care center by trying to fill the coverage gaps in patients’ lives.

First of all, Medicaid reimburses so poorly that physicians in the area — and I don’t blame them a bit, but they can’t take too many Medicaid patients or their practices would sink. And so, we have all those people who need to have access to care.

Kathie Brown, Executive Director – Wheeling Health Right

And patients are thankful. Brown says she gets spontaneous thanks and hugs wherever she goes.

I’ll have somebody say to me, ‘thank you so much. And I’ll say, ‘well, you’re welcome.’ And they’ll say, ‘no, you don’t understand. You work for Health Right. I wouldn’t be alive if it weren’t for Health Right.’ I hear that constantly.

Kathie Brown, Executive Director – Wheeling Health Right

7News is a proud partner with Trinity Health Systems of the Remarkable Women contest.

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