The line item of $250,000 is eliminated from a DHHR budget
request of approximately $780 million for FY2011.
The Center for End of Life Care is an educational resource
for citizens and the medical community. Last year it provided information and
advanced directive forms to more than 50,000 West Virginians
so end-of-life treatment wishes are documented and respected.
“I was flabbergasted,” said Bruce Foster, M.D., a family
practice physician in South Charleston.
“Most people do not want to be kept on machines when they
know they are going to die, they want to be at home and kept as pain-free as
possible,” he said.
“There’s so much discussion about health care costs right
now. The majority of costs come at the end of life, and the WV Center for End
of Life has done so much to get people to think about what they want and get
their advanced directives,” he said.
“This makes no sense at all to me.”
The Center for End of Life Care provides educational
programs to the public, medical providers, medical students, hospitals, nursing
homes and hospices throughout the state.
It oversees the WV Palliative Care Network, which is a group
of hospitals that have implemented end-of-life care units.
The Center also maintains an information distribution
program, a toll-free number for information, and a website. There you can
download advanced directive forms including the WV Living Will form, the
medical power of attorney form, and the do-not- resuscitate card.
“Just a preliminary estimate suggests at a minimum when West
Virginians’ end-of-life wishes are known it saves the state at
least $6 million a year,” said Alvin Moss, M.D., project director of the
center.
“Funding for the Center for End of Life Care is only
$250,000 a year. And so now the entire
program that makes this possible has been eliminated,” said Moss. “So it’s a little
hard to understand why that would be.”
Secretary of Health and Human Resources Patsy Hardy declined
an interview request through her spokesperson who said she would explain the
elimination of the program to the House Finance Committee in a budget hearing
Monday.
“I do believe if West Virginians that
have benefited from this program would speak up the legislature would be able
to find the money to continue our center,” said Moss.
Moss said through the work of the center, West
Virginia leads the nation in the percentage of
population that has completed advanced directives.