HAY SPRINGS, Neb.— The sun was just warming the horizon as Mark Pieper left his house near his cattle ranch on a crisp February morning.
It’s not unusual for the rancher to wake up early to tend to livestock, but at 5:45 a.m. this day his cattle wouldn’t come first. For the past 3½ years, three days a week, Pieper has made an early-morning commute to get dialysis at the nearest hospital.
Pieper lives outside Hay Springs, which has 599 residents, according to a sign at the edge of town. He makes sure not to forget his chocolate-brown cowboy hat before starting up his pickup truck for the half-hour drive to Chadron.
That February morning was one of his last dialysis sessions there before the hospital shuttered the service at the end of March.
“I guess I’ll just bloat up and die in a month,” Pieper remembered thinking when he learned the center was closing, eliminating the only option near his home.
He needs dialysis to survive after cancer treatment damaged his kidneys.
Pieper and 16 other patients relied on Chadron Hospital for the life-sustaining therapy that filters waste and fluid from their blood — a job their failing kidneys could no longer do. Treatment lasts about four hours.
The closure of the dialysis unit at Chadron Hospital upended the lives of …