Coös, Carroll and Grafton Counties, NH-
Tri-County Transit Modifies Rural Service
Tri-County Transit, a Tri-County Community Action Program, announces that it will be altering the frequency and availability of its non-emergency long distance medical transportation (LDM) program. Tri-County Transit serves over 4,455 square miles of Coös, Carroll & Grafton County in rural Northern New Hampshire. Although there will be changes to the LDM program, Tri-County Transit will continue to run all of the local bus services currently offered in the Berlin, Littleton, and North Conway areas.
Non-emergency long distance medical transportation (LDM) is a service of Tri-County Transit provided mostly by volunteers, utilizing their personal vehicles. Trips include bringing people to medical facilities for non-emergency, regularly scheduled medical appointments. Some of the most frequently requested trips include rides to Dartmouth-Hitchcock Center in Lebanon, Littleton Regional Healthcare, Concord Hospital, Northern Vermont Regional Hospital in St. Johnsbury, and the Veterans Hospital in White River Junction.
The LDM service is incredibly valuable to the community and serves those who are unable to drive to get to appointments for medical services. In fiscal year 2016, Tri-County Transit door-to door LDM provided over 17,213 trips to medical appointments in Coös, Carroll and Grafton County. The Transit program receives many requests to perform non-emergency long-distance medical trips. The service will still be available; however, due to increased demand, Tri-County Transit will not be able to fulfill all of the requests it receives.
TCCAP Transit Director Beverly Raymond cites high demand and lack of available volunteer driver as factors in TCCAP’s capacity to fulfill requests. “All of us at Tri-County CAP are committed to providing high quality services to the community, and we will continue to do our best to provide as many long distance medical trips as we can” states Robert Boschen, CEO of Tri-County Community Action Program. “This is not a case of reduced funding or demand. We are just not finding the drivers we need to meet demand. As always as a human services organization, we will do everything we can with the resources available to us. We are mindful that we are assisting vulnerable individuals and that we are stewards of public funds.”
Tri-County Transit is committed to providing safe, reliable, convenient transportation options for northern New Hampshire residents. It provides over 50,000 rides annually to residents of the Tri-County area. Tri-County Community Action Program (TCCAP) is a private nonprofit organization that serves over 27,000 New Hampshire residents annually in the Tri-County area.
Anyone interested in participating in this program by becoming a volunteer driver should call Tri-County Transit at 752-1741 or toll-free at 1-888-997-2020.
