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.