CHARLESTON, W.Va. (WSAZ) - West Virginia Gov. Jim Justice is directing the West Virginia Department of Health and Human Resources to install an electronic death reporting system after reviewing an investigation centered on unreported COVID-related deaths.
“I can’t tell you that it is completely over but I surely hope and pray that this is the last part of it,” Justice said. “I do not know that for sure. But nevertheless, I can tell you that it is unacceptable to me in every way and we are going to fix this.”
Earlier this month the governor reported that 165 COVID-related deaths were not reported to the DHHR, one week later 20 more unreported deaths were found and on Wednesday over 30 more were added to the list totaling more than 200. Justice called for an investigation to figure out who was responsible.
On Wednesday, the report was released and the governor says after reviewing the results, he is wanting a change to the state’s death reporting system.
“West Virginia is one of the only states in the country that does not have (an electronic death reporting system), we probably didn’t need that in West Virginia,” Justice said. “At least we didn’t think we needed that, until we got in this situation.”
The report shows there was a discrepancy between the reported deaths to DHHR from local health departments and the number of physical death certificates DHHR received.
Currently in West Virginia, DHHR has to wait for the physical death certificate to confirm their numbers match with what was reported to them by local health departments. Officials say this is for every death, not just COVID-related. However, the report states it can take up to seven weeks for a death certificate to be fully processed which often times can cause a lag in DHHR receiving the paperwork. The report specified that the lag can happen even during normal times but with a pandemic in the mix it adds more to their plate.
“Nearly without exception those interviewed during this preliminary investigation reported that the overwhelming and demanding nature of the responsibilities and workloads faced by the (local health departments) staffs throughout the course of the pandemic as they undertook ongoing duties related to testing, contact tracing, investigations, reporting, record keeping, education for local healthcare providers as reporting and compliance protocols changed, and planning and delivering vaccines, were among the daily Page | 4 responsibilities faced by exhausted and often overwhelmed staff members.” -Report
“Due to the lag time to prepare, submit and issue a West Virginia death certificate it is not possible today to use a death certificate for near real-time reporting,” Justice said.
The report goes on to say that due to staff overturn, providers who were unfamiliar with the process may not have reported deaths to local health departments. Officials also say local health departments may not have forwarded the death reports to DHHR because they were waiting for a doctor to confirm a cause of death.
“I hate this, I’m sorry for this,” Justice said, “I hate like crazy that these certificates didn’t get to us or I hate that they weren’t processed properly within our system. We’re changing it.”
The report also said there were no missing death certificates found by the investigation but not every certificate notes COVID-19 as a factor or cause of death.
Gov. Justice says the National Guard will help assist in creating the electronic death reporting system which he wants done “immediately.”
Click here to view the full report.
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