Dear Editor,
The recent report commissioned by the Green Mountain Care(less?) Board, which would degrade and curtail services provided by our North Country Hospital in Newport, is just one more example of the disrespect heaped on Orleans and northern Essex counties by the state of Vermont.
The contempt shown time and again for Vermont’s most rural, least populated region knows no bounds. Apparently, we are deserving of one of Vermont’s six state prisons, and our state’s only landfill — with all of the accompanying social and environmental fallout — but are not deserving of the health care resources required to fully protect and provide for our citizens in this economically and socially marginalized corner of our state.
Research indicates Orleans and northern Essex counties rank among the highest in the state for negative health risk factors and negative health outcomes. Yet the Green Mountain Care Board’s heartless and harmful report, based on faulty data, proposes to reduce the continuum of prenatal to end-of-life care we have been accustomed to historically, and instead have our citizens travel up to an hour or more to St. Johnsbury’s already stretched Northeastern Vermont Regional Hospital.
How will our citizens in need of hospital care, and their care teams, obtain needed services at greater distances when our transportation resources are totally inadequate already? This is just one of many questions that rise in the face of the Wyman report.
The citizens of Orleans and northern Essex counties require accountability from our governor, Agency of Human Services and our Legislature. We require appreciation of this “out of sight, out of mind” corner of Vermont, for the inestimable value that our natural resources and resilient people provide to our state.
The well-being of our region’s people and our regional economy relies on a safe and healthy community network, which includes a full range of accessible health care resources, among them our intact and invaluable North Country Hospital.
Peggy Stevens
Charleston
Read the story on VTDigger here: Peggy Stevens: The Wyman Report recommendations are another insult to our corner of the state.