BRATTLEBORO-At the rally in support of the Brattleboro Memorial Hospital (BMH) Birthing Center last month, my husband and I were impressed not only by the poignant stories shared by parents, medical staff and community members, but also by the civil, respectful, and constructive tone of these testimonies, as well as the remarks by BMH Board Chair Chloe Learey.
We left feeling hopeful that the Brattleboro community would work together to find a collaborative solution that would keep this vital center alive.
While the current financial difficulties are clear, so is the groundswell of support for the Birthing Center.
We understand that the board decision was made with four of its nine members absent and without involving the OBGYN staff. We think that a six-to-nine-month timetable, with the implied threat of a closure sooner, is not wise. We ask the board to reconsider their decision, or at least extend the timetable to a year, to give the Legislature, the Green Mountain Care Board, and community leaders to work on potential long-term solutions.
What can you and we do? One easy, quick and painless step is to call Governor Scott’s office at 802-828-3333 and express your support for keeping the Birthing Center open.
If the representative tells you this is a local, not a state, issue you can mention that BMH would be the third of 12 birthing centers in Vermont to close in the past few years and that Vermont needs a statewide approach to keep our rural hospitals and our communities healthy. One step would be to reduce the Healthcare Provider Tax rate that BMH pays to the state to help fund the birthing center.
Beyond listening to the personal stories of patients and providers, our community must wrestle with the long-term impact of this closure. The median age of Windham County residents is the second highest in Vermont, and our state is close to the oldest in the country. The future stability and prosperity of Windham County depends on attracting and retaining the younger generations so that they choose the Brattleboro area to birth and raise their families.
As elders, we urge you to take these simple steps to help ensure a healthy future for our children, grandchildren and beyond.
Ann Newsmith
Brattleboro
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.