BERLIN, Vt. (WCAX) – UVM Health Network plans to eliminate inpatient mental health beds at Central Vermont Medical Center as part of a sweeping cost-cutting plan announced last week in the wake of budget disputes. Advocates are pushing back. with state regulators.
“This is a matter of life and death. That place saved my life,” said Nicole DiDomenico, a former patient at Central Vermont Medical Center.
In 2016, DiDomenico sought mental health care at CVMC’s Inpatient Psychiatric Center. She is concerned that recent cuts from the UVM Health Network could mean a permanent closure of the entire unit.
UVM said the cuts were in response to a 1% cut in commercial prices ordered by regulators after UVM posted higher profits last year.
DiDomenico and other advocates on the CVMC advisory committee sent a letter to the Green Mountain Care Board asking it to block the bed closures. “As mental health concerns and crises continue to grow, it is inconceivable that it should not be available,” DiDomenico said.
“We are in a health-care-wide crisis,” said I-Northfield MP Anne Donoghue. “This is effectively the only reduction that is irreversible in that it cuts off care and offers no alternatives.”
In a statement, GMCB officials emphasized the need for mental health beds. “Decisions about major changes to services, such as the closure of psychiatric inpatient units, can have far-reaching implications for the availability of care and the well-being of local communities,” they said. The board says their actions in 2017 helped lead to a new mental health urgent care that recently opened in Burlington.
CVMC will stop accepting new patients and reduce services in January. After that, they will work to open outpatient mental health urgent care in partnership with the Washington County Department of Mental Health. “This model has been shown to impact both emergency department visits and psychiatric inpatient acute care admissions,” said CVMC President Anna Noonan.
DiDomenico, who returned to Montpelier, says receiving hospital-level care was critical to her and her community. “If I hadn’t had the opportunity to spend eight days there and receive services, I wouldn’t be standing here today,” she said.
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