In his letter to VTDigger, Robert Gardner, of Rochester, thoughtfully points out the damage he believes closing the Gifford Medical Center would have on the town and region. Such a closure will in fact have the negative effects he fears and probably worse. However, the stark reality and hard facts come down to money and patient numbers.
The medical center in Randolph cannot survive financially. As the cost of health care soars nationally, local, rural health care will suffer as population demographics shift and continue to decline. Without the adequate number of daily patients, these rural communities cannot support medical centers like Gifford. Fortunately, Dartmouth Hitchcock Medical Center is only an hour’s drive from Rochester, and health care in Burlington and Montpelier are also viable options.
Maintaining health care facilities and educational buildings are serious problems facing all Vermont rural towns. This is the harsh reality of a state where there are not enough healthy young folks to keep a balance with the medical needs of the aging older folks. Not enough money goes into the pool of insured people from healthy younger people to support the expenses of older folks and their medical costs.
Vermont is already taxing people at a very high rate through individual state income tax and taxes on their residential property. There are NO additional resources to be raised from increased taxes to keep many rural medical facilities open or rebuild many of the aging, rural public schools that are crumbling.
And it’s not just rural health care: Vermont faces serious financial problems. It’s shocking there is so little attention and outcry from the general public about this perilous state of affairs.
It’s the reality of balancing any budget and basic math. I wish it were otherwise.
Richard Dalton
South Pomfret
Read the story on VTDigger here: Richard Dalton: Gifford Medical Center cannot survive financially.