Legislators call on UVM Health Network to reconsider planned cuts, but execs say they have no choice

By AUDITI GUHA

VTDigger

Published: 11-29-2024 5:12 PM

Dozens of state legislators are calling on the University of Vermont Health Network to reconsider widespread cuts the health care provider has proposed.

The lawmakers are seeking to “raise the voices” of the system’s most vulnerable patients, Sen. Andrew Perchlik, D/P-Washington, said during a virtual press conference staged Tuesday by AFT Vermont, the union that represents 10,000 health care and higher education workers across the state.

Two weeks ago, the health network announced a plan to eliminate UVM Medical Center’s transplant services, reduce the number of inpatient beds at the Burlington hospital by about 10%, close the inpatient psychiatric unit at Central Vermont Medical Center, shutter two clinics in the Mad River Valley and offload dialysis programs in Newport, Rutland and St. Albans.

Patients, providers and advocates responded with dismay, and legislators have now added their voices to the mix.

“Clearly, we have a broken system when the largest hospital network in the state is proposing to cut programs that our communities rely on, strictly for budgetary reasons,” read a letter 45 current and incoming legislators sent to Sunny Eappen, CEO of the UVM Health Network, on Tuesday.

Lieutenant Gov.-elect John Rodgers sent a similar letter to Eappen on Tuesday, calling on the health network to “reconsider these cuts and commit to working with the Green Mountain Care Board, Agency of Human Services, and the Vermont Legislature to find a path forward that keeps necessary services open and available to those of us who need them.”

The health network’s leaders have placed blame for the cuts on regulators at the Green Mountain Care Board. But Rep. Anne Donahue, R-Northfield, said at Tuesday’s press conference this was not the time to point fingers, especially during an “escalating crisis that’s driving out the ability for people to buy insurance, that’s making timely access to health care unavailable, that’s threatening our rural hospitals.”

Donahue called on the hospital network to act “like an adult” instead of “throwing patients under the bus as a negotiating tactic for political advantage.”

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“Medicine’s supposed to be one of the highest ethical callings. This sinks it to the lowest level of politics,” she said.

Donahue took particular issue with the network’s decision to eliminate an inpatient psychiatric unit “at a time of a statewide recognized mental health crisis.”

Deb Snell, an ICU nurse at UVM Medical Center and president of the Vermont Federation of Nurses and Health Professionals, said during the press conference Tuesday that the union had filed “a very large information request looking for all the data” pertaining to the cuts and is expecting a response from the network early next month.

Snell said that, given her experience caring for patients at the point of suicide, she believed that “cutting mental health services is just ridiculous.”

In a separate press conference organized soon after legislators and union leaders held theirs, executives from the UVM Health Network outlined the funding challenges the system faces. They said they share concerns about the impact that cutting services could have on vulnerable patient populations, particularly in dialysis and psychiatric care.

“I think it’s important for everyone to recognize that we’re in the business of taking care of patients … that’s our mission,” said Anna Noonan, president and chief operating officer of Central Vermont Medical Center. The health network would not make “a decision like this without heavily considering and weighing the impacts on the patients, their families and the communities we serve. So it’s absolutely not a political piece.”

Stephen Leffler, president and chief operating officer of UVM Medical Center, called it a difficult time for Vermont, citing rising costs in multiple realms. “We have to figure out solutions,” he said. 

It’s time, he said, for the executive branch, the Legislature, regulators, health care providers and insurance companies to “come together and figure out how to take some pressure off commercial insurance.”

In the meantime, the health network has to comply with the cost-cutting demands of the Green Mountain Care Board, Leffler said, even if the decisions are difficult.

“We understand people are upset. We really want to work on the next steps now: How do we roll these out with the least impact possible?,” he said. “How do we figure out how to not have this happen again? And how do we work to make sure there is good health care across Vermont for all Vermonters who need it?”