PUTNEY-I was a pediatrician who worked at the Brattleboro Memorial Hospital Birthing Center for a little over 10 years. It was a special place compared to other maternity wards I had worked at.
Breastfeeding was supported, childbirth classes were well-attended, nurses were devoted to patients having the best experience possible, and well-trained, experienced, and compassionate OB and pediatric doctors and midwives worked together well. I was forlorn when I heard it was on the chopping block.
Why does this happen? Why would a unit that listens to what families want, that has excellent outcomes, and that is loved, be closed? Jobs will be lost, and pregnant women will have to travel over an hour — dangerously far. Medicaid money will go out of state, and young people will be hesitant to move here.
The Birthing Center crisis is the face of our state’s systemic issues.
Our healthcare system rewards profitable services — quick, billable procedures and imaging — rather than labor and delivery, prenatal and postpartum care, mental health care, and primary care, which are essential life-supporting services.
OB services, while so fundamental to communities, do not generate money for hospitals because they require so much staffing, because those workers must be on call 24/7 regardless of the number of births a hospital has, and because Medicaid reimburses less than 30 cents on the dollar.
The only hope for our rural OB units is for the Vermont Medicaid program to increase reimbursement rates and for the state to cover everyone with insurance. Governor No has refused to do that, even though not increasing reimbursements will cost babies’ and mothers’ lives.
This year, we have the exciting opportunity to replace Governor No with Amanda Janoo. She is an economist with the expertise and experience to lead an economy that works for everyone. She has plans to change the systems that govern how we collect our money and where we spend it.
Amanda has an understanding of what Vermont is capable of accomplishing without federal support, something that has been a challenge for a part-time citizen Legislature with no paid staff to study the situation.
She has looked at the books and is calling for universal publicly-funded primary care, without the involvement of insurance companies. To fund this care, she supports a 3% surcharge tax on people with yearly incomes of more than $500,000. And she is looking into the possibility of regional state collaborations to expand universal healthcare coverage beyond primary care.
Amanda knows that putting out her ideas on economic issues is what will get people engaged and excited. She’s a transformative economist who believes in and has experience with bottom-up economic development.
People are fed up with politicians who have no specific economic plans or who rehash old ideas that waste money, which has been going on for too long in Vermont. Hers is a winnable platform.
What an opportunity we have! Having Amanda Janoo in the governor’s office would make a huge difference in our state in terms of healthcare, housing, education, and more.
Jane Katz Field, M.D.
Putney
This letter to the editor was submitted to The Commons.
This piece, published in print in the Voices section or as a column in the news sections, represents the opinion of the writer. In the newspaper and on this website, we strive to ensure that opinions are based on fair expression of established fact. In the spirit of transparency and accountability, The Commons is reviewing and developing more precise policies about editing of opinions and our role and our responsibility and standards in fact-checking our own work and the contributions to the newspaper. In the meantime, we heartily encourage civil and productive responses at voices@commonsnews.org.