BRATTLEBORO-About 100 people showed up in front of Brattleboro Memorial Hospital (BMH) Tuesday morning in a continuation of community actions in support of keeping its Birthing Center open.
After about 45 minutes of speeches from supporters and healthcare workers, many went into the hospital to attend a meeting of the BMH Board of Directors.
In a news release on Monday, organizers called on Brattleboro Memorial Hospital Birthing Center Providers, patients and families, Brattleboro Federation of Nurses (BFN) members, Brattleboro Healthcare United (BHU) members, and community partners and local labor organizations to “call on the Board to reverse its decision and work with healthcare workers, state leaders, and the community to preserve local birthing care.”
Ellen Schwartz from the Vermont Workers Center, one of the organizers of Tuesday’s event, was collecting signatures from attendees. She said that the proposed closing of Birthing Center “is just a symptom of the bigger crisis in rural healthcare in the U.S.”
Across the country, she said, small hospitals are struggling to stay open, leaving huge service gaps.
Schwarz also said that Gov. Phil Scott’s proposal to allow insurers to sell high-deductible policies in Vermont would end up costing hospitals even more money when families can’t cover a $10,000 deductible before their insurance would kick in.
Governor’s office stands firm: no more funds
The rally comes after Gov. Phil Scott addressed the closure at a press conference in Montpelier on Friday, where he said no further state assistance would be provided to BMH despite intense lobbying from community members and civic, business, and nonprofit leaders.
Scott told reporters he was “a little surprised” to hear the request “because we are giving them help — we’re giving them $1 million.”
The governor said that when BMH’s budgetary distress came to the surface, his administration provided the funding, “but they had to come back to us with a sustainability plan.” The announcement of the Birth Center’s closing was part of that planning process, he said.
“They chose to close their birthing center,” Scott said. “So now after the fact now they’re coming and saying that they need our help when we’re giving them help.”
Scott called on his secretary of human services, Jenney Samuelson, to address the BMH funding in more detail.
She echoed Scott’s account of the funding but said, “You know, Brattleboro Memorial Hospital was in the driver’s seat in developing that plan, and part of that plan was to cut birthing services at their hospital.” She called it “a very difficult decision on their hospital’s part, but the decision wasn’t solely financial.”
Samuelson said that “we’ve been working with Brattleboro for months, but the announcement of the Birthing Center closure plans happened so abruptly because of unanticipated departures of staff.
Dr. Corina Tennant, the chief of obstetrics and gynecology BMH and a partner at Four Seasons OB/GYN & Midwifery, told The Commons that staffing for the Birth Center and related hospital services has suffered the loss of two midwives and attributed her colleagues’ departures to a combination of factors.
She said her colleagues were making approximately $20,000 less per year than they would in other hospitals regionally, and they weren’t exempt from the issues around housing — its lack of availability and its cost — which have dogged Vermonters in recent years.
But Tennant said that the uncertainty looming over the program even before the announcement in June was the precipitating factor.
Samuelson said the birth rate at BMH is also declining — to fewer than 220 this year, she said — while costs are rising.
She also said that “much of what we’ve seen in the news is criticism about access” and pushed back on concerns that families would need to drive farther to access care for families and their children.
Samuelson said the Department of Human Services worked with the Department of Health and “a myriad of other folks in that community” to analyze the drive times and said they are “staying relatively stable.”
She said that she was planning to come to Brattleboro on Friday, and “we’re going to speak with the hospital.”
Travel fears
The fears of traveling long distances to give birth are real for people who live in the outer reaches of Windham County.
Sarah and Miriam Schuldenfrei, two sisters who live in West Townshend, both have children who needed BMH Birthing Center’s services since Grace Cottage Hospital in Townshend no longer has a maternity ward.
Sarah’s daughter Faye was born at home, but Sarah said she and her newborn needed to be rushed to BMH after complications developed.
“They saved both of our lives,” said Sarah.
Miriam gave birth to her son, Henry, at BMH six weeks ago.
“We definitely can’t afford to lose this place,” she said.
For Tiffany Russo, now of Wardsboro, she thought so highly of BMH’s service that she had both of her children, Coco and Charlie, in Brattleboro even though was living in the Boston area at the time of their births.
“I was in labor by the time I got here,” said Russo of her first birth experience at BMH.
This News item by Randolph T. Holhut and Jeff Potter was written for The Commons.