Officials at St. Joseph's Hospital are voicing their concerns about Camden Clark Memorial Hospital's application to provide emergency angioplasty.

In June, Camden Clark filed an application to the West Virginia Health Care Authority to try and establish facilities for emergency angioplasty.

Shortly afterwards, St. Joseph's Hospital requested a hearing, partly out of concern that there aren't enough interventional cardiologists in Parkersburg to provide the service.

Recently, St. Joseph's Hospital withdrew that request because St. Joseph's officials said they felt they could submit their concerns in a letter. Jill Parsons, St. Joseph's Hospital Vice President, said they could still express their concerns and save money and time by not going through the hearing process.

Parsons said "We would be a in a better situation to have an emergency angioplasty performed at a facility that has open heart on site so that if a patient needed that procedure from the emergency angioplasty, they would be able to have that done almost immediately."

Greg Smith, a spokesperson for Camden Clark Memorial Hospital said "This does not change any of the protocols for transferring if you need open heart backup if there are those rare cases that you would need to have that. You'd still be able to do that and to provide that service but you're taking care of that patient right away and opening up that artery if it's needed."

Smith said Camden Clark does have the resources available to provide emergency angioplasty.

The hospital's application will be reviewed by the West Virginia Health Care Authority and the board will make a decision.

Officials are unsure when that will happen.