Roaring Fork Valley needs a dialysis center

I would love a dialysis center in the Roaring Fork Valley.

I drive 90 minutes to the dialysis center in Avon. Getting connected, cleaning my blood and disconnecting takes about five hours. Then the drive back home to Basalt is another hour and a half. I do that three times a week in order to stay alive.

Over the years since I’ve learned of my chronic kidney disease, I’ve questioned our local hospitals about opening a dialysis center in our valley. Their reply was that there was not enough people to support one here.

Now that it is essential that I go, I was lucky that there was a chair available at the Avon Kidney Center of the Rockies because they are so busy. Otherwise the only other centers are located in Grand Junction. Every time I’ve been at the Avon Center, it’s filled.

It’s not possible that I’m the only one in the whole Roaring Fork Valley that has kidney disease.

I’m writing this with the hope that others in this situation might speak up and encourage our local medical professionals to make this dream a reality.

Lee Loeschen

Basalt