In cash-strapped Wyoming, a community votes for a new hospital

Kari DeWitt of Pinedale, Wyoming, needed a blood transfusion. It was 2014, and her placenta had partially ruptured; she and her unborn son were in critical condition. But Pinedale has no local hospital, only a town clinic, so she couldn’t get the help she required there.

DeWitt, a theater producer who leads the Pinedale Fine Arts Council, had to wait 45 minutes for a medi-flight plane to transfer her to a hospital in Idaho Falls, over 100 miles away. Within three minutes of her arrival, she gave birth — and received the blood she needed.

This year, DeWitt successfully campaigned to pass a ballot measure that will bring a hospital to Pinedale, in Sublette County. Now, nobody in her community will face the excruciating uncertainty she experienced when her son was born. “I know we’re in the ‘Wild West,’ ” DeWitt said. “But it’s not the 1800s.”

More than a dozen Wyoming communities, including Sublette County, raised or renewed local taxes in November 2020. In addition to the new hospital, the taxes will fund water system repairs, road and bridge maintenance, and a new museum. At the same time, Wyoming is facing major budget deficits as the primary source of state revenue — the fossil fuel economy — contracts. Now Wyoming communities have to figure out how to get by with shrinking state support.

Read more: https://www.hcn.org/issues/53.2/north-economy-in-cash-strapped-wyoming-a-community-votes-for-a-new-hospital
(High Country News)