February 1, 2006
To Whom It May Concern:
As a Home Health Care Occupational Therapist, I work for St. Thomas More Hospital in Canon City, Colorado. We provide services to all of Fremont County, including, Texas Creek, Deer Mountain, Tallahasee, Cotopaxi and up Highway 9 past Guffey. Western Fremont County is accessible by only one road – Highway 50. This is why the prospect of having 250,000 people descend on our county for the two-week display of Christo’s artwork and the three years of construction and disassembly is so distressing to me. The impact on highway use by that amount of traffic and the travel impediment caused by the installation will be significant. We, as Home Health Care providers, already travel up to 40 miles (one way) to reach some of our patients. The added time it will take with the influx of traffic will not only limit the number of patients we can see in a day, but may actually prevent some patients from receiving the care they need.
There are a significant number of elderly and retired people living among the 4500 permanent residents off of Highway 50 between Canon and Salida. In the past 17 years of providing Home Health Care in this area, I have seen patients who required daily wound care, parenteral feeding (daily), blood and lab draws, oxygen concentrators, and therapy to regain their ability to walk and take care of themselves. There are also hospice patients who require 24-hour care in their dying process. The Medicare definition of a “homebound” patient means that they are unable to drive themselves or be safely transported to a facility for their care. Home Health Care is their only option.
I have heard on more than one occasion “ there won’t be any problem
traveling the highway”. This is not what was reported to the public
at the recent BLM “scoping” meetings. The traffic analyzer stated
that the highway would become a virtual parking lot.
I am begging those that can stop this project to do so now, before construction
begins.
-C. J. Young, M.Ed., O.T.R.