West Virginia lawmakers passed a bill earlier this year aimed at having more information about an incredibly important and heartbreaking topic: the trends behind the deaths of infants and children.
House Bill 4874 called for an annual report about deaths resulting from suspected domestic violence and the deaths of all infants and all women who die during pregnancy, at the time of birth or within one year of the birth of a child. The final focus is meant to be deaths of children under 18 years of age
The annual report was intended to reflect trends, patterns and risk patterns of situations that were reviewed over the previous year. It was also supposed to include recommendations to reduce the number of fatalities and mortalities that occur in the state.
However, the first time the report was presented to lawmakers, that’s not what they got.
Instead, the report provided to the Legislative Oversight Commission on Health and Human Resources Accountability described cases going back several years — but not enough detail or conclusion about recent trends. Officials said that is because state agencies might not receive information about some cases when investigations and autopsies remained pending.
Lawmakers emphasized the need for timely, actionable data to inform legislative actions and prevent future deaths, suggesting a shorter timeline for data reporting.
“We wanted to know how many children died in ’23, and we have no idea,” said House Health Committee Chairwoman Amy Summers, R-Taylor, one of the lead sponsors of the bill that mandated the report.
Summers, a retired nurse, said state officials could use the information and apparent trends to make better policy decisions to try to help prevent childhood deaths.
“There’s no way for us to change or to push the departments to make change if we don’t have up to date data.”
Summers continued, “We know we have a lot of accidents with kids on ATVs and car wrecks and those kinds of things. But we’re just not getting actionable data.”
Nothing more frustrating than the @wvlegislature passing a law and the @WVDeptofHealth breaking it. Due Dec 1, death data on infants, children, moms, and domestic violence victims from 2023. No 2023 data but data we did not ask for….smh pic.twitter.com/VGUXT1BO59
— Amy Summers (@AmyMSummers) December 11, 2024
Delegate Heather Tully, R-Nicholas, was also a sponsor of the bill calling for the report. Tully, who is also a nurse, suggested the report seemed to be influenced too heavily by oversight from lawyers. She said the report that was provided did not match the intent of the legislation.
“What we’re doing, I think, is delaying the reporting of data that could be beneficial in the interest of protecting the prosecution of a case — and I don’t know that that helps children or someone else that may be in that situation where we see a trend that we could intervene on and maybe positively affect the trajectory, maybe eliminate a death, prevent a death,” Tully said.
She continued by asking for greater care to follow the spirit of the bill.
The bill was one of a set of policies prompted by concern among legislators about how little information has been available to the public when West Virginia children die or are discovered in abusive situations.
This bill focused on a Fatality and Mortality Review Team under the state Department of Health. The team examines the deaths of all infants and all women who die during pregnancy, at the time of birth, or within one year of the birth of a child and the deaths of children under 18 years of age.
Delegate Bob Fehrenbacher, R-Wood, was among the lawmakers who expressed concern that the report produced by the review team didn’t measure up to expectation. He wondered if it reflects outdated information that would not be especially useful for updating state policies.
“The focus is to reduce future deaths,” Fehrenbacher said.
Senator Vince Deeds, R-Greenbrier, also questioned the lag time of the information in the report, based on investigations remaining open. Deeds, a retired State Police trooper, brought up the example of a stepmother who murdered five young boys, set the family’s house on fire and then took her own life.
That happened in the district that Deeds represents, and he said it remained open for investigation for an extended period of time.
“That investigation was left open for a long period of time because there were other investigative leads that needed to be followed up on that ultimately didn’t bear fruit. It was what it appeared to be out of the initial investigation,” Deeds said.
He encouraged officials to document relevant cases, saying names and many details wouldn’t be immediately necessary. He said it’s more helpful to have timely information to pursue policy changes.
“Help us make this better,” Deeds said. “This is a critical issue. Every death is a tragedy in our state, but especially on those that are most innocent — our children — is a tragedy none of us need to experience in our lives.”