April 22, 2020

“Not only do you have to travel far to get to beds,” Grieman said, “You’re going to a place where there are more people, where there is also an outbreak, and those beds may also still be in high demand. So, that’s what I find particularly disconcerting.”

RTC:Rural Project Director Lillie Grieman in a recent news article on Public News Service, on why rural people with disabilities are at higher risk during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Rural people with disabilities and barriers to hospital access

Rural people with disabilities face many barriers to accessing health care, particularly Intensive Care Units and hospital beds. Hospital capacity varies greatly, as does the prevalence of people with disabilities. Typically, there are fewer hospital beds and higher rates of disability in rural places than urban ones.

Project Director Lillie Greiman discusses some of these barriers in a recent news article- read or listen to the news story through the following link:

Rural Montanans with Disabilities Face Challenges from Home to Hospital

Travis Hoffman, advocacy coordinator for Summit Independent Living, was also interviewed in the article. Summit is a long-time RTC:Rural partner.

For more information about RTC:Rural’s recent research on hospital bed availability in rural counties, see our April 3 blog post: Identifying potential hospital bed shortages for people with disabilities.

This post features a map created by Greiman that shows the number of people with disabilities per hospital bed across hospital referral region across the United States.