AUBURN – At 80 years old, Virginia Titus can manage to drive her husband Leroy to Auburn three times a week for dialysis treatments, but it’s not easy.

“I don’t know what I’ll do if there’s a blizzard,” she said.

It wasn’t an issue until last week, when the volunteer who drove 84-year-old Leroy Titus quit.

“They let us know on Wednesday, and we had one day to figure it all out,” Titus said. He was told that Community Concepts, the group that reimbursed the driver’s mileage, simply ran out of money.

Finding drivers is becoming a problem, said Koriene Low, transportation director for Community Concepts. She manages a stable of 300 drivers around the region who take patients from their homes to treatment centers in Lewiston, Auburn, Wilton, Bath and Augusta.

She typically spends less than $90,000 per year to reimburse the volunteer drivers for mileage, but a huge increase in demand for dialysis and other medical treatments has ballooned costs over the past six months. She’s spent $100,000 since July.

“We’re just out of money at this point,” Low said. “We’ve applied for 285 grants and we’re waiting to hear and see what comes through for funding.”

Titus makes the trek from his house in Norway to Auburn every Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday. Dialysis filters toxins from the blood of people who have impaired kidney function.

“That is one thing you do not fool around with,” Titus said. “You don’t miss an appointment, because you’d be dead.”

Treatments last about four hours three times each week, and Titus must rely on a driver to get him there and back home.

“You just sit there for half the day in that chair with your arm out,” he said. “You can’t drive after that. At least, I know I can’t.”

Nationwide increase

Community Concept’s Low blamed a nationwide increase in dialysis for the increased costs. She has similar problems with cancer patients needing rides for their regular chemotherapy and radiation treatments.

“And this is just the tip of the iceberg, if you ask me,” she said. An aging population and increases in diabetes and hypertension mean more failed kidneys.

“The older Baby Boomers get, the more of this we’re going to see,” she said.

Many volunteer drivers have elected to keep shuttling patients without reimbursement, Low said. Anyone interested in volunteering can contact Transportation Associate Director Mark Cafiso at 795-6073.

Low recommended that patients worried about getting regular rides look around their community.

“Look at their church, or the American Legions if they are veterans,” Low said. “It is a community issue.”