It’s a three-block trip – four-tenths of mile – from Washington Arbors high-rise to the Liberty Dialysis clinic in Washington.

But Debby Hanes, a passenger on Washington Rides shared-ride paratransit system, said on her way to dialysis appointments, she has sometimes found herself traveling by way of Hickory or Avella, a round trip of 23 to 31 miles, but not by choice.

She said, at other times, she’s within shouting distance of the clinic at Millcraft Center, 90 W. Chestnut St., but the vehicle won’t let her disembark for her 6:30 a.m. appointments.

“They circle the block two or three times before they will drop you off,” Hanes said, adding the paratransit vehicle will bypass the clinic to pick up a passenger at Crumrine Tower high-rise on South Franklin Street or to drop someone off for a shopping excursion at a local store, each about a block away from Liberty Dialysis.

Hanes, 53, uses a walker that folds, so she can be picked up by van or sedan, but her frustration mirrors that of another Washington Arbors resident, Lisa Foltz, who uses a manually operated wheelchair to get around. Last summer, Foltz waited three hours for a ride to the Arbors on North College Street, a three-block trip from a relative’s personal care home. When she was finally picked up, the vehicle, equipped with a wheelchair lift, was dispatched from the Mon Valley community of Donora, 28 miles away.

While Foltz’s stranding last August may have been a matter largely of inconvenience, Hanes said her difficulties with Washington Rides and First Transit are a matter of health.

“If they drop me off at 10 a.m., I only get 1 1/2 hours of treatment,” Hanes said. “I’m supposed to get four hours of treatment. On Monday, March 2, they didn’t show up at all. I called Liberty. There were no chairs available Monday afternoon, and no appointments available on Tuesday, March 3. There was no appointment until Wednesday, March 4, and believe me, I was feeling it.”

Dialysis, through a filtration machine, removes waste products from the blood of a person whose kidneys failed. As these toxins build up in her system, Hanes said they cause distress.

“You start feeling it in your rib section,” Hanes said, describing the sensation as “pressure and pain, all over sluggishness. You just feel miserable.”

Her medical insurance pays for the cost of her trips.

Since last May, when Washington Rides began coordinating trips through a new computer software program, its vehicles have been equipped with GPS tracking devices. After being contacted by a reporter, Sheila Gombita, executive director of the Washington County Transportation Authority which oversees the Washington Rides program, checked the vehicle’s whereabouts March 2, a day that included freezing rain.

Gombita called it “a bad-weather day, something we have to factor in. The vehicle in her mind may not have shown up, but the vehicle did show up.”

Hanes said she waits for a paratransit vehicle in the lobby of nine-story Washington Arbors, but after time passes, she returns to her apartment hoping a driver will exit the van and ring for her apartment so she can return to the lobby. Hanes said that was not the case March 2, and the vehicle she encountered at the Arbors was destined for Pittsburgh.

Hanes has regular appointments at Liberty Dialysis on Monday, Wednesday and Friday mornings, and she talked on her phone during a dialysis treatment, with beeping and whooshing of machines providing background noise.

On other days, Hanes said Washington Rides picks her up or drops her off late at the clinic, but a First Transit driver arrives hours early for her return trip home.

“I don’t drive,” Hanes said. “Washington Rides is the only way I have to get around.”

Although one of the causes of kidney failure is diabetes, Hanes said she is not a diabetic.

“I was diagnosed with kidney problems in 2001,” explained Hanes, who had her first dialysis treatment in July 2013. “I have hereditary hypertension. Kidney problems run in my family on my dad’s side.”

If she loses 62 pounds, she hopes to be added to a waiting list for a kidney transplant.

Even though dialysis is a life-saving procedure, Hanes said, “I usually feel real bad (afterward). You feel like you’ve been beat up. After I go home and rest a bit, around 7 in the evening I start to feel normal. You feel better the next day.”

Washington Rides encourages those who are having difficulties with paratransit service to immediately contact the agency at 724-223-8747.

“Anecdotal information is very hard for us to deal with,” said Gombita. “We need to hear about it right away. We’re not going to be perfect. It’s unfortunate, but it’s the transportation industry.

“Are there going to be late trips at times? Yes. It’s not a perfect service. It’s no different than you and I driving in our own cars.”

She also had no evidence of Hanes’ trips to the dialysis clinic by way of far-flung Washington County communities since the GPS began tracking vehicles. “There is nothing I can document,” Gombita said. “Without dates and times, there is nothing that would suggest this has been happening.”

On March 9, Hanes said her walker was left in the driveway of Washington Arbors. She blamed the driver for not placing it in the vehicle, but, after investigating the circumstances, Gombita said, “We have a conflicting report.” Hanes was able to retrieve the walker when she returned from her dialysis appointment.

Since Lisa Foltz’s near-stranding came to light, Gombita said First Transit’s on-time percentages improved greatly from August’s 80 percent record. The firm advertised for additional drivers and hired several.

By October, it was 90 percent; December and February stood at 93 percent; and February was 93 percent. Gombita, in an early April interview, said she did not yet have March figures.

The transportation authority’s other contracted transportation provider, the Mon Valley-based Tri-County Access, consistently had a better track record: August, 96 percent; October, 97 percent; December, 96 percent; January, 95 percent; and February, 96 percent.

Both First Transit and Tri-County Access have additional three-year contracts beginning May 1 through June 30, 2018.

After these gains by First Transit, Gombita said she was dismayed by the dialysis patient’s complaints. “My concern is further erosion of the service we provide. People will not want to use the service that has dramatically improved. That’s very troubling to me. It’s a service that is needed by so many different people.

“Are we going to run late? Absolutely. People want to have a direct line to where they want to go. It’s not taxi service, it’s shared-ride service. If it was on-time 100 percent of the time, the cost of the service would be so expensive that people wouldn’t be able to use it.”

Hanes is not alone her frustration with Washington Rides.

“Sometimes I do have to cut my treatments short,” said Barbara Huffman, 64, of Bellmead, another patient who needs to be at the Liberty Dialysis Clinic in Washington by 6:30 a.m. “It’s not unusual, as I say, to have to take a tour of Washington.”

Huffman said she experienced complications after a treatment and made an unexpected trip to Washington Hospital by ambulance. She was personally unable to inform Washington Rides of this development, and she was dismayed when she received a letter from the program telling her a driver made a trip to the clinic to shuttle her home, but she was a “no-show.”

The letter warned her if this failure to notify Washington Rides occurred again, she faced a 30-day suspension from using the service.

Gombita said she could not find record of the letter Huffman described, but said if someone wrongly receives a threat of a suspension, “Call and let us know. We are very forgiving on those and we look at these things. When you have a no-show, it impacts service. Still, call and we will wipe that off their record.”

Cheryl Tingley, 50, of Washington, said she has been a dialysis patient since August. The clinic was about to close for the evening after her treatment, but Tingley was still waiting for Washington Rides to pick her up to drive her home.

“One of the ladies from (the clinic) took me home,” Tingley said. “She wasn’t supposed to give me a ride, but she did.”

Hanes said she’s found herself in the same predicament as Tingley.

Jacqueline Brown, 50, of Washington, began kidney dialysis in November. “The only complaint I have is they’re late, very late for the pickup.” She also received a threat of suspension letter because of a hospitalization she said was partly because of complications related to dialysis.

“I almost died, I was so sick,” Brown said. “I thought everything was taken care of. I think it was March 4.” She said she did not contact Washington Rides because “I was so disgusted.”

Gombita said she realizes dialysis patients can have problems that those who use Washington Rides for shopping trips don’t encounter.

“It’s a challenge in servicing dialysis patients,” Gombita said. “We know the constraints they have and we understand the complications that go along with it, and the health-related issues that cause them to be taken to a hospital. We will do whatever we need to do to make sure the dialysis patients are receiving the treatment that they need.”

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