By Joe Nelson
MORGANTOWN — A program dedicated to helping those who are in the final stages of their lives is looking to regain state funding.
The WVU Center for End-of-Life Care has been serving Mountain State residents for almost 20 years. Its online registry gives a directive of sorts to how one person may choose to spend his or her final days.
“We’re impacting over 100,000 West Virginians a year,” Dr. Alvin Moss, the center’s founder, said on WAJR Clarksburg’s “The Gary Bowden Show.”
Moss said the numbers can be a little surprising sometimes.
“We have 800 website hits a month,” he said. “We have over 1,000 forms sent to our registry every month. We have over
90,000 forms on the registry, so we are a key part of patient care here in West Virginia.”
One of the center’s most commonly used services for West Virginians approaching or in their final stages of life is the Advanced Directive Database. The database contains thousands of living wills or advanced directives, which, according to Moss, could make a difference on whether an individual or a loved is able to choose the terms of what’s done during their final days.
“We believe, because patients tell us, that they want to live as long and as well as possible and die gently,” Moss said. “And most people agree that dying gently is not dying in the intensive care unit on a breathing machine but dying at home or in a site of their preference with their loved ones and friends around them.”
Hospitals across West Virginia are a part of the database, has led to concerns regarding possible security hacks and the need for a consistent database for the amount of living wills on file.
According to Moss, most West Virginians reaching the end-of-life age have some sort of advanced directive or living will, but the issue can be that it’s either in a safe deposit box or some sort of unreachable area. The database, for hospitals, is that neutral and secure source in the event there are no other forms or documents for the patient.
“The registry has sort of been identified as a single source of truth,” he said, “If you complete it and give copies to the important people but then also put it in the registry, health care providers know ‘well, if nobody seems to have the form, let’s check and see if the registry has
a copy.’ ”
Since the early 2000s, the End-of-Life Center received state funding from the West Virginia Legislature. This changed in 2016 when WVU decided to help fund the center in the midst of statewide economic pressures. In light of recent changes to West Virginia’s economic environment, there is hope the state will resume funding.
Moss thinks the goals of the center and the state’s goals should be enough to resume the relationship.
“Our goal is to help people have their values honored and respected at the end of life,” he said. “That’s the reason why for many, many years we’ve had enthusiastic support from the West Virginia Legislature, because they agree with those goals.”
