Wednesday, January 8, 2020
“We all agreed that finding a path forward to return the Retreat to fiscal stability was the goal,” Smith told Seven Days on Wednesday, hours after meeting with the center's executive team in Montpelier.
The negotiations followed a morning of testimony before the House Committee on Health Care, where legislators heard about the public showdown over funding between Smith's agency and the leaders of the state's largest inpatient health and addiction treatment center.
The Retreat's president and CEO, Louis Josephson, did not return a call for comment Wednesday night, and a message left on a number listed for the board's chair went unanswered.
Tags: Mike Smith , Agency of Human Services , Brattleboro Retreat , Web Only , Image
Monday, January 6, 2020
The former manager of an Essex eldercare home for seniors with dementia will pay up to $120,000 to settle claims that it misled prospective residents.
WoodBine Senior Living, a small, Maryland-based management company, opened Spring Village at Essex in 2016 and operated the residential care home until 2018, when it was renamed Maple Ridge Memory Care. The newly built facility was supposed to offer state-of-the-art dementia care, but problems mounted as WoodBine pushed to fill beds. Seven Days and Vermont Public Radio detailed these issues last month as part of the news organizations' "Worse for Care" investigative series on the eldercare industry.
WoodBine promised prospective residents that they would be able to live there until they died, Attorney General T.J. Donovan said at a Monday press conference.
Tags: Woodbine Senior Living , DAIL , Maple Ridge Memory Care , Web Only , Image
Sunday, January 5, 2020
Brattleboro Retreat president and CEO Louis Josephson wrote in the letter that the Windham County facility has an "unsustainable business model" and may soon have to "wind down our operations." He bemoaned a recent decision by Secretary of Human Services Mike Smith to deny additional funding to the Retreat, writing that "without that support we cannot continue to operate."
"The Retreat's Board of Trustees met in emergency session this morning to discuss the Secretary's conclusions, and want to convey that they have directed me to plan for the sale or closure of the Retreat in the very near future," Josephson wrote. "I have started that work."
Josephson's letter became public on Sunday when Smith issued a blistering press release criticizing the Retreat's leadership for failing to improve its financial position and asking the state for more money. "Make no mistake, any threat of closure is both the decision and the result of the Retreat's current leadership," Smith wrote.
The secretary argued that the state had repeatedly provided additional support to the institution — including as recently as November. "Despite the investment of millions of state dollars, Retreat management has failed to deliver fiscal stability to the institution," Smith wrote.
Tags: Brattleboro Retreat , Louis Josephson , Mike Smith , Web Only , Image
Tuesday, December 3, 2019
NPR reported Saturday that the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, which regulates nursing homes, is proposing a slate of rules that would save operators a collective $600 million annually. The proposal is the latest way the Trump administration is working to loosen strict federal oversight of the industry. CMS has already reduced the fines paid by homes that violate rules.
Using certain antipsychotic drugs to medicate elders with dementia has been widely criticized because that can hasten cognitive decline. Last week, Seven Days and Vermont Public Radio reported allegations by Vermont women that their late mother, Marilyn Kelly, had been quietly drugged with daily doses of Haldol, a powerful and sedating medication, in a residential care home in Rutland.
Tags: Worse For Care , nursing homes , eldercare industry , antipsychotics , regulation , Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services , Haldol , Web Only , Image
Friday, November 8, 2019
About 30 people gathered for a 7:30 p.m. showing of Vaxxed II: The People’s Truth, a sequel to the controversial 2016 film that purported vaccines pose unknown dangers to children. The sequel debuted Wednesday at 50 theaters around the country — including Montpelier’s Savoy Theater.
Producers of the film sold tickets quietly in advance of the debut to avoid calls to block the movie from playing, according to the Guardian.
Tags: roxy , anti-vax , vaccinations , burlington , wakefield , Web Only , Image
Tuesday, November 5, 2019
To make the Y more accessible, membership rates will drop. A single adult membership will cost $49 per month, down from the current $70. A two-adult family membership will decrease from $98 to $84 per month. One-adult families will pay $74, down from $82. A financial assistance program will provide scholarships to those who demonstrate need.
The current Y, a 1934 red-brick structure at 266 College Street, is “a rabbit warren” of rooms and stairs where few spaces serve their original purpose, said Bishop. The new facility, just 150 steps from the old Y at the former Ethan Allen Club, will use space more efficiently and purposefully. It complies fully with the Americans with Disabilities Act, equipped with an elevator, wide doors and hallways that can accommodate wheelchairs. Both the lap pool and program pool will be equipped with lift chairs. Young children can enjoy a new "splash pad."
Tags: Greater Burlington YMCA , childcare , pools , Web Only , Image
Friday, October 4, 2019
As of October 1, the previously 24-7 hotline has pared back its hours to between 8 a.m. and 8 p.m. Monday through Friday. Advocates fear the cut will leave people with few options at times they need help the most.
"This is another example of the state deciding to stop providing services to some of the most vulnerable Vermonters,” said Karen Tronsgard-Scott, executive director of the Vermont Network Against Domestic and Sexual Violence.
The move follows similar cutbacks to court programs for domestic violence victims in Lamoille and Washington counties, which Tronsgard-Scott said have been discussed for years but occurred recently with little warning.
Tags: 2-1-1 , housing , homelessness , Web Only , Image
Thursday, September 12, 2019
The Connecticut-based company reportedly reached a tentative agreement on Wednesday with half of the states and local governments that have filed suit against the OxyContin maker and its owners, the Sacklers. That deal “would have Purdue file for a structured bankruptcy and pay as much as $12 billion over time, with about $3 billion coming from the Sackler family,” the Associated Press reported.
But on Thursday morning, Donovan said in a statement that the state rejected the offer because the amount of money to be paid is not yet settled, and the deal “is not fully developed and we want to be certain that any benefit is not illusory.”
“Vermont demands more certainty and guarantees regarding the money in order to effectively address the opioids crisis in Vermont,” Donovan wrote.
The AG also blasted the idea of the company declaring bankruptcy, saying the business could shutter and sell its assets instead.
“I want to be sure that billionaires can’t use bankruptcy court as a vehicle to avoid accountability,” Donovan wrote.
Tags: Vermont , Purdue Pharma , settlement , reject , T.J. Donovan , attorney general , drugs , OxyContin , Sackler family , Web Only , Image
Tuesday, September 3, 2019
Leahy, flanked by Levine, announced the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention grant at the Vermont Health Department in Burlington.
Vermont has faced up to the challenge better than other rural areas, Leahy said, "but more needs to be done."
"I think we all know that the opioid crisis is the most complex public health challenge of our time," Levine said. Over the past five years, Vermont has built a strong intervention, prevention and treatment infrastructure, he continued.
"But there's much more we can do to turn what we know, data, into life-saving action," the state's health commissioner said.
Tags: Patrick Leahy , senator , Mark Levin , Vermont Department of Health , commissioner , opioids , Web Only , Image
Wednesday, August 28, 2019
Allegations against the state, put forth by an unnamed couple, appear to dovetail a 2018 report by a parent advocacy group that identified what it saw as systemic failures in Vermont’s child protection system.
One of the most egregious claims in the lawsuit filed Monday in U.S. District Court asserts that a DCF case worker compelled one of the plaintiffs, a mother, to begin taking the opioid-weaning drug suboxone, itself an opiate, by convincing her it was necessary to regain custody of her children.
The state’s behavior “shocks the conscience,” attorneys for Shlansky Law Group of Burlington wrote on behalf of the plaintiffs. The family is seeking damages.
Tags: Department for Children and Families , Child Protective Services , Child Abuse Registry , Web Only , Image