[This posting was updated on Jan. 20.]
Due to financial issues, Vermont’s Brattleboro Retreat has been under intense pressure to close, or severely cut back its services, reported The Keene Sentinel last week.
“In consultation with the Board of Trustees, we are exploring every avenue to change the Retreat’s unsustainable business model and reimbursement but no matter what the outcome, the Retreat, if it exists at all will be a very different organization in the future,” wrote President and CEO Louis Josephson in a letter to Vermont Gov. Phil Scott and Human Services Secretary Mike Smith, the Sentinel reported.
This is significant news for the LGBTQ community in that the mental health and addiction treatment facility—which on the whole serves about 5,400 people each year—also provides the only inpatient psychiatry program geared for LGBTQ people in the country, according to its website.
Boston Spirit reached out to the Retreat last week and this morning, Jan. 20, Jeffrey Kelliher, the Retreat’s communications and media relations manager, told us that their LGBTQ unit, called Osgood 2, “was temporarily closed earlier this month due to a drop in census…but it is open again and we are accepting patients there and in all Retreat programs.”
“The Retreat is not planning to close the LGBTQ+ program on Osgood 2,” he said.
A Jan. 15 letter to the editor in the Brattleboro Reformer from a local resident stressed the importance of the unit to the community:
“Staff for the unit, admissions staff, and patients are left waiting for an anticipated opening date [during the temporary closure],” writes Rheba Reynolds in her Jan. 10 letter. “Patients being admitted are rerouted to other programs, with staff not trained to support the unique needs and differences that the LGBT+ community has.”
“Choosing to close the only LGBT+ unit as part of an ongoing funding battle with the state is choosing to place an already vulnerable population at greater risk,” Reynolds says. “Patients who are already at their most vulnerable must now decide if they can handle facing the stigmas so prevalent towards their sexual orientation or gender identity from both staff and peers. If they cannot, they are left with no alternative for treatment.”
Meanwhile, Governor Phil Scott, in his recent State of the State speech, offered some words of reassurance, saying, “This health care provider is simply too critical for us to let fail, especially without an alternative. This would have a devastating impact on our mental health system and the region’s economy,” and promising that his administration will “do everything we can responsibly do to help.”
And according to the news website VTDigger, Retreat officials met with the state’s Department of Mental Health Commissioner Sarah Squirrel, who told VTDIGGER, “We’re really optimistic that we’re not facing an imminent closure. We still need to attend to the short-term needs of the Retreat.” According to the news website, this includes a commitment from the Retreat’s CEO and President Louis Josephson to hire an independent financial consultant and conduct an internal examination.
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