Rachel Scarino, a Brattleboro parent, educator, and resident, shared this joint constituent letter — on behalf of her and 164 other Windham County community members and families — that was officially submitted on Aug. 14 to Vermont Agency of Human Services (AHS) Secretary Jenney Samuelson regarding the future of labor and delivery care at Brattleboro Memorial Hospital (BMH).
BRATTLEBORO-Dear Secretary Samuelson,
First, we want to thank you for all the time, energy, and care you and your team are putting into preserving and strengthening healthcare across Vermont. We know these are complex challenges, and we really appreciate your dedication to keeping rural communities healthy.
We are writing to you as local parents, expecting families, and community members because we are deeply concerned about what losing our local birth center at Brattleboro Memorial Hospital (BMH) will mean for our children and our community.
If Vermont wants to keep and attract young, working families like many of us, we simply cannot afford to lose another birth center. When essential services like birthing care disappear, young families’ health and well-being are jeopardized, forcing them to look elsewhere.
Eliminating vital health services makes it nearly impossible for rural towns to retain the exact demographic needed to keep local schools open, tax bases stable, and economies thriving. Many of us chose to build our lives here because we love rural Vermont, but we need safe, accessible, local care when bringing our children into the world.
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As the Agency of Human Services reviews options to support Brattleboro Memorial Hospital, we respectfully ask you to utilize three vital tools within your power:
1. Approve the Rural Transformation Funds to support BMH and stabilize our regional maternity care. We know this is a bridge rather than a permanent fix, but it will give clinicians and leadership the necessary time to build a truly sustainable path forward.
2. Increase Medicaid reimbursement rates for birthing services so rural birth centers across the state have a realistic, stable foundation.
3. Shift birthing payments from a global budget to a single-payment model, so our local hospital is fairly compensated for all the prenatal and delivery care it provides.
BMH’s midwives and doctors have provided incredible care to so many of us, along with thousands of routine visits that keep women healthy year-round. We have something truly special here, and we need your leadership to help preserve it.
Thank you again for listening to local families and for caring so deeply about the health of Vermonters. We hope we can count on you to use these mechanisms to keep our babies being born right here at home.
This Voices Open Letter was submitted to The Commons.
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