Covering Travel Costs Ensures Lander Children With Special Needs Get Necessary Medical Care

Living rurally means there is often a lack of access to medical care. This can be especially true for Lander, Wyoming, children with special needs who must to travel across the state and region to get the care they need; some children must travel as far as to Billings or Salt Lake City (four or five hours) to receive treatment. Many of these families cannot afford the gas, lodging, and food costs that go into each trip to the child’s specialist. While some state funding does help offset these costs, it’s not enough to cover all of the families in Lander who need help. Recognizing this gap, a Lander resident who had retired from Child Development Services of Fremont County reached out to LOR with a solution: provide travel-related costs for families to receive specialty healthcare. LOR’s funding will be used to cover gas, food, and lodging to help approximately 30 Lander families get their children the care they need.