ELIZABETH — After playing a few rounds of bingo on a Thursday summer morning, Jackie Davis stayed around her table at the Wirt County Committee on Aging & Family Services’ senior center and socialized with some friends. The 67-year-old retired Elizabeth resident lives within walking distance of the center, a place that’s one of the things she loves most about her county.
“I don’t think I’ll ever leave it,” she said.
But there are some challenges that come with living in the county with the smallest population in West Virginia. Davis doesn’t drive, and her diabetes and high blood pressure mean she frequently needs to see doctors who don’t practice within 20 miles of Elizabeth. Wirt County doesn’t have any bus or taxi service, and rideshare drivers require long waits with expensive rates.
If one of its vehicles is available, the senior center has a driver who can sometimes transport her to an appointment. If they’re not, Davis has few affordable options.
In early September, she had an appointment scheduled with a doctor in Spencer to assess her eyesight — something that has been damaged by her diabetes. But Davis couldn’t get a ride for the visit and had to cancel it. She’s rescheduled for early October.
“It’s depressing because you can’t get anything done,” she said.
Like other parts of rural West Virginia, Wirt County is a place where residents of all ages can struggle to access the services they need to maintain healthy lives. There’s no hospital in the county’s borders, and the 5,000 people who live there often have to travel at least 30 minutes to Parkersburg or farther to get what they need.
For folks like Davis who don’t have reliable access to a car, it’s a setup that can force them to push back doctor appointments indefinitely or go without important medical treatment entirely.
Whether it’s through more accessible services in the area or more transportation options, Davis hopes her health access is something that state lawmakers in her area will address. And she knows it’s not just her asking for this commitment.
“It’s a problem for everyone in Wirt County, ” she said.
‘We don’t always have a driver available’
A few hundred yards away from the senior center, Dr. Darrin Nichols sat in his office at Coplin Health Systems’ Elizabeth clinic. The Wirt County High School graduate is the only doctor in the county, serving as the chief medical officer at the care center that served him as a kid.
Growing up in an area where health services are sparse, Nichols said he felt a responsibility to bring his knowledge home once he entered medical school at West Virginia University — where his work was awarded frequently.
“This community sort of helped raise me,” he said. “When you have learned talents or learned gifts, you bring those back to the people that you can help.”
Two major health issues have emerged in Wirt County, according to Nichols. One of them — the overdose epidemic — has plagued the state for decades, but Wirt had avoided some of its worst consequences. That changed in recent years. Nichols said his clinic is now trying to keep up with the increased need for addiction treatment.
The other problem he sees is a rise in cancer cases, something Nichols attributed to health screenings being less accessible during the worst periods of the COVID-19 pandemic.
While Nichols and his staff can offer some help for these issues, it can be difficult when Wirt County residents need to see specialists. The clinic contracts telehealth clinicians that help make some care easier to get, but there are limits to virtual care.
“Certainly we can’t do chemotherapy or things like that,” he said.
When patients without cars need out-of-town services, Nichols said the local Committee on Aging is often his patients’ go-to option. It operates the only transportation program in Wirt County open to residents of all ages.
Billie Ashley, the committee’s director, said 141 people used the ride service in August, often for trips to see doctors or buy groceries. There’s a Piggly Wiggly in Elizabeth, but she said Parkersburg stores are often more affordable for people in town. Earlier that day, a man asked to be driven to Walmart because sugar was $4 cheaper there than the grocery store in town.
Some clients travel as far away as Morgantown for medical care — a couple of hours away from Elizabeth. The committee doesn’t charge people a set amount for rides because its employees know many of their riders don’t have much discretionary money.
“We meet everyone more than halfway, as much as we can,” Ashley said.
With the resources the program has, she asks that people schedule rides three days before they need them.
“When someone calls and says, ‘my doctor needs to see me right now, can you get me there?’ We can’t always do it,” she said “We don’t always have a driver available.”
The state provides the nonprofit with $27,000 for their transportation work, according to Ashley. She said that most of that money goes to the driver’s salary, and there’s only about $10,000 left after that to run the program each year.
As she spoke, the Committee’s seven-passenger van was in the auto shop. It needed a new transmission, an expense she estimated would cost over $5,000. Ashley had to find a different source of funding for that repair.
“If we have a vehicle go down, there is no money or budget for maintenance, tires, oil changes, things like that,” she said.
Same candidate priorities, different approaches
For its 2024 election coverage, Mountain State Spotlight is traveling to all 55 counties to talk with residents about community problems they would like to see lawmakers address. As part of this work, the newsroom asked people running for state offices in Wirt County about what they could do to make health care access easier for residents.
All three candidates Mountain State Spotlight spoke with agreed that it was important for people in their districts to get the care they needed to live healthy lives. But there were differences in how they said they would approach transportation gaps.
Sen. Donna Boley, R-Pleasants, said her constituents haven’t brought up that issue to her yet, but she recognized it as an important need for the people she represents. Recently, she had eye surgery in Belpre, Ohio — a couple of dozen miles away from her home in St. Marys.
“If it wasn’t for my daughter, I don’t know how I would’ve managed that,” she said.
During next year’s legislative session, Boley, who is running unopposed, said she would advocate for better funding for West Virginia’s senior centers so organizations like the Wirt County Committee on Aging could do more transportation work.
If elected for the House seat of District 15, the district representing most of Wirt County, Del. Erica Moore, R-Roane, said she would also look to direct more money to senior centers. Appointed to the statehouse by Gov. Jim Justice less than a year ago, she said she’s still learning which state funds can be used to fund them.
“I think it’s definitely worth looking into and researching and trying to find ways to fund through the state if it isn’t already being done sufficiently,” she said. “I think there’s always, always, always room for improvement.”
She said that while the Legislature wasn’t currently working on medical transportation projects, she’s talked with someone about creating a way for residents in places like Elizabeth to request service from Kanawha and Wood County buses.
Her Democrat challenger, Spencer Middle School special education teacher JuliAnna Penfold, initially said there were transportation options that already serve residents in her district, like the Mid-Ohio Valley Transit Authority.
When told that the Wirt County Committee on Aging was the only public transportation service for the county, Penfold said she would have to look at how the Committee uses its funding and whether local funding options are available before she would advocate for more state dollars.
“Even though they’re underfunded, do they have that capability?” she asked. “Then they should be also offering those services.”
She offered to help the organization apply for grants and said she would look into ways to expand public transportation options in the Mid-Ohio Valley.
Penfold said she wanted people in her district to have better access to health care. And if elected, she would look into ways to get more specialist doctors practicing in places like Wirt County.
“Do I think Wirt County could use a lot of services? Yes,” Penfold said.
Regardless of who ends up representing Wirt County, Nichols, the Elizabeth doctor, will continue to do what he can to meet his county’s health needs. As consistent primary care can keep health conditions from developing into severe problems, he works to prevent people from needing more specialized doctors.
Nichols knows that for some of his patients, it’s not a given that they’ll be able to get that care.
“You try to do as much as you can safely,” he said. “I really do try to do that here.”
