Overdose crisis exhausts West Virginia indigent burial fund

 

Overdose crisis exhausts West Virginia indigent burial fund

By
Naomi Spencer

10 March 2017

Five months before the end of the fiscal year, West Virginia’s Department of Health and Human Resources (DHHR) funding for its Indigent Burial Program has run out.

Frederick Kitchen, president of the West Virginia Funeral Directors Association, told the Intelligencer/ Wheeling News Register March 5 that the spiraling drug overdose death rate is the cause of the funding shortfall. The DHHR’s budget for indigent burials is $2 million per year, and the department typically allocates $1,250 for funeral homes to provide burial services to the poor. “We’ve got five months with no money available,” Kitchen said. “Funeral directors do what they can, but this creates a hardship for a lot of funeral homes.”

The fiscal year ends June 30. So far, according to Allison Adler, spokesperson for state DHHR Secretary Bill Crouch, “1,508 burials have been committed for payment through the Indigent Burial Program. … There are funds remaining for 63 additional burials.” Every year since 2013, the fund has been depleted before the end of the fiscal year.

Kitchen explained that many overdose deaths require an autopsy that can take two or three weeks before a funeral. “It puts a lot of hardship on families after getting the worst news of their lives,” he said.

“Most of our families [of overdose victims] are worn out leading up to it,” said Eric Fithyan, a funeral director and planner for James and Chambers funeral homes in the Northern Panhandle of the state. “However, a lot of times we deal with the families asking the ‘what ifs’.”

Fithyan told the Intelligencer, “The biggest and hardest thing is dealing with those left behind. A drug overdose death is almost like a…

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