Listening more than talking, Colorado Health Foundation’s new CEO learned of the great divide between economic classes throughout Durango, La Plata and surrounding counties when it comes to regional health care.
Karen McNeil-Miller has been on a listening tour throughout the state since she was hired in September as president and CEO of the Colorado Health Foundation. All this week, she’s been visiting Southwest Colorado to better understand health care and insurance coverage on a local level.
At the Henry Strater Theatre on Monday, McNeil-Miller listened to a modest gathering of Southwest Colorado’s health officials, a constituency of which represented various health agencies.
“It was important to me from the beginning to hit the road as soon as possible,” McNeil-Miller told the crowd. “If I am going to be a good steward, I need to meet as many people as I can.”
The Colorado Health Foundation is a state-based organization that gives out grants across the state, totaling about $100 million a year, with initiatives that include healthy living for children, access to affordable health care and assisting health care providers on a local level.
In La Plata County, the CHF has funded several projects, including 9-R’s after-school Spark Physical Education program, and the region’s only dental clinic that serves Medicaid patients. Most recently, CHF doled out more than $670,000 for health providers to organize a care-coordination program.
On Monday, health officials were quick to list the many positives assets in the region, which include a robust nonprofit community, an involved citizenry, growing collaboration between providers and the overall environment and quality of life in Southwest Colorado.
However, when asked of the challenges the area faces, McNeil-Miller learned of the deepening divide between the region’s affluent and poverty-stricken communities.
“It’s a tale of two cities,” said Liane Jollon, executive director for the San Juan Basin Health Department. “And smaller communities (like Durango) are developing disparity at a widening gulf.”
According to statistics provided by CHF, while the unemployment rate in La Plata County is lower than the state average – 3.6 percent compared to 4.3 percent – the region still suffers from many shortcomings.
The average hourly rate is 22.3 percent lower than the state average: $20.80 in La Plata and $26.78 throughout Colorado, and the county’s uninsured rate of 11.1 percent is higher than the statewide average of 6.7 percent.
“I feel as though there is a divide,” said Claire Ninde, communications director at SJBH. “The people who come here to play don’t see the people who come here to work. We have some work to do in that area.”
And with 12.4 percent of residents living in poverty in La Plata County – consistent with the state average – the region’s homeless population creates an added difficulty, especially since the number of those living on the fringes saw an uptick this summer.
“Our homeless population is on the rise,” said Ellen Stein, director of development at Axis Health System. “The divide is definitely apparent with that community, and it has an impact. Our downtown has been impacted: With tourism, there is a concern among merchants. So that’s a population we’re recently trying to figure out how to support.”
Throughout the two-hour meeting, a range of issues were brought up, not all of which are unique to Southwest Colorado: substance abuse, access to affordable health care, legalization of marijuana use and lack of options for providers.
But what was unique, McNeil-Miller told The Durango Herald after the meeting, is an issue usually found in small resort towns.
“The themes at a broader level are the same: mental health, jobs, transportation, housing, poverty – those are all similar things (heard around the state),” she said.
“But when we talked more about the growing divide, that is nuanced. What’s different here is people aren’t leaving the community for jobs, and they aren’t coming from outside for jobs. It’s more of a self-contained issue. That’s different than what we heard in the past, and you hear that more in the resort communities.”
McNeil-Miller said aside from a few CHF led initiatives – namely addressing substance abuse – the organization is instead challenging local communities to come up with project-specific proposals, which would then be considered for a grant.
“We want the communities to coalesce around an issue,” she said. “Many other communities tackle one or more issues at a time because it gets too overwhelming to get at them all. It’s harder to have equal progress on 15 issues rather than just taking two and knocking it out of the park.
McNeil-Miller is set to travel to the state’s 11 different regions, covering all 64 counties by mid-February. To date, she’s been to more than half. And although she’ll hear from people on the ground in each of those communities, there’s one thing she’s not surprised by.
“I’ve never seen a community make up their mind about an issue, and not make it happen,” she said.
jromeo@durangoherald.com
