Tag Archives: Central Vermont Medical Center

Are We Sure the Green Mountain Care Board Knows What the Hell It’s Doing?

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Shots fired!

In response to revenue cuts ordered by the Green Mountain Care Board, the University of Vermont Health Network is slashing services at multiple locations. Most egregious, to me, is the closure of Central Vermont Medical Center’s inpatient psychiatric unit.

Reminder that we’ve had a chronic shortage of inpatient psychiatric space more or less continuously since 2011, when Tropical Storm Irene put the final nail in the old Waterbury state hospital’s coffin. And now we’re cutting eight beds?

A cynical observer might infer that UVMHN disagrees with the Board’s mandate, and is forcing the issue with unpopular and/or unworkable reductions. Seven Days’ Derek Brouwer wrote that the Network’s announcement “ratchets up a long-simmering tension” between the Health Network and the Board.

The Board was in a ratcheting mood itself. It issued a huffy statement Thursday afternoon expressing deep concern with the cuts and asserting that it “was not consulted on, and did not approve, these reductions.”

Well, boo frickin’ hoo.

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GMCB Adds a Dab of Lipstick, Hopes You Won’t Notice It’s Still a Pig

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Well, that didn’t take long. In fact, it couldn’t have happened any faster.

Two weeks after public comment forced the Green Mountain Care Board to defer cancellation of a plan that might have led to a badly-needed increase in inpatient mental health beds, the Board came right back and went ahead with the deal today with minimal amendment. It stands essentially as it did before: it lets the University of Vermont Health Network off the hook for designing a new inpatient facility, thus closing the door on the best opportunity to resolve our 12-years-old-and-counting* crisis on inpatient mental health care.

*That’s the generous count, starting the clock with Tropical Storm Irene. If you want to include the dilapidated, outdated old state hospital, well, the crisis goes back a lot further.

The revised plan requires UVMHN to invest $18 million in boosting “capacity of mental health services in the state.” Not “inpatient,” mind you, but “mental health services” of any sort. The Board then punted review of UVMHN’s plan to the Department of Mental Health because, as Board member Jessica Holmes put it, “we’re not the experts” and DMH is.

It also allows the GMCB to wash its hands of the whole mess, but that’s just a bonus.

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