After problems with health care access, Albert Lea residents are getting a better ride

An area shuttle service hopes to help ease Freeborn County’s health care woes by offering free rides to local hospitals.

SMART Transit, which operates in Austin, Albert Lea and Owatonna, is expanding its medical ride service for Freeborn County residents next year thanks to a $10,000 grant. The shuttle company will offer free rides to Mayo Clinic hospitals in Albert Lea and Austin for residents age 55 and up, addressing a problem for residents who’ve seen medical services in the region shrink over the years.

“We’re quite ecstatic,” said Chris Thompson, operations manager at SMART Transit. “I can’t even explain how wonderful news it is.”

Mayo Clinic Health System in Albert Lea announced service cuts in 2017, urging people to travel to Austin, about 20 minutes east, for most inpatient hospital visits. Area residents organized to get Iowa-based MercyOne to open a primary care clinic in 2022, but pandemic-related complications and financial troubles led to the clinic closing at the beginning of 2024.

A group of Albert Lea residents approached SMART Transit officials earlier this year, asking for more medical shuttle service and expanded rides to hospitals. SMART has had a free ride program for seniors in Mower County for years thanks to Mayo Clinic grants, but there wasn’t funding to duplicate the program.

Mayo officials worked with SMART staff to secure grant money through the Naeve Health Care Foundation, a local group named after the former hospital that served Albert Lea residents since 1911. The foundation grants money for local health care issues including Mayo program funding; it has donated more than $4 million for community health care.

Freeborn County isn’t alone in struggling to access health care. For decades, hospitals in greater Minnesota have largely joined up with bigger systems or closed as the state’s population shifted to metropolitan areas. Some smaller hospitals have tried banding together to save money, while others find niches in the area to offer better services.

Yet a growing population of seniors means an ever-increasing need to get them to doctor’s appointments, and rural communities are struggling to meet transportation demands. Minnesota’s senior population (age 65 and older) grew from about 680,000 residents in 2010 to almost 950,000 in 2020, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. Not all of them have their own transportation.

“If you have a car, you just take it for granted,” said Emelia Gaudian, the program coordinator at the Albert Lea Senior Center. “There are so many seniors that, when the weather’s bad or when they need to get something and they don’t have a vehicle ... they’re stuck.”

A 2020 study from the St. Peter, Minn.-based Center for Rural Policy and Development found that volunteer transit services — mostly younger seniors with vehicles driving other seniors around — significantly declined from 2010 onward. At the same time, greater Minnesota transit ridership grew by only about 8% from 2010 to 2014.

SMART plans to start up its ride service in Freeborn County on Jan. 2. Seniors age 55 and up can ride for free on scheduled buses, on-demand shuttles and the shuttle service between Austin and Albert Lea Monday through Friday.

“For folks who live on the route, they can now go to the clinic for free,” Thompson said. “If money was a deterrent ... they don’t have to worry about that anymore.”

Rides on demand are on a first-come, first-served basis by reservation; Thompson said reservations are already piling up. SMART officials hope to continue funding rides through the Naeve Health Care Foundation in future years. It’s unclear how many Freeborn County seniors will ride with SMART, but Thompson said the company is committed to providing transportation even if the grant runs out midway through the year.

“We’ll continue on and just find a way to make it all work out,” she said.